Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood Education Sex role stereotyping and gender bias permeate everyday life. Children learn about sex roles very early in their lives, probably before they are 18 months old, certainly long before they enter school. (Howe, 1). The behaviors that form these sex roles often go unnoticed but their effect is immeasurable. Simple behaviors like: the color coding of infants (blue & pink), the toys children are given, the adjectives used to describe infants (boys: handsome, big, strong; girls: sweet, pretty, precious), and the way we speak to and hold them are but a few of the ways the sex roles are introduced. These behaviors provide the basis for the sex roles and future encouragement from parents and teachers only reinforce the sex roles.Toys, literature, media, and films also encourage sex roles. Males are depicted as "doing", while females are always "receiving." In this paper, 5 articles focusing on sex roles were used. The articles look at the damaging effects of sex role stereotyping, and some ways the sex roles are accentuated in the schools. The research on sex role stereotyping is currently growing. There are many theories regarding its existence. Some attribute the sex roles to the media, literature and society, but it is a combination of all these factors. Despite the best of intentions by parents to not encourage the sex roles, at the time of kindergarten, children will demonstrate behaviors specific to their sex. It is believed that this phenomenon occurs because the children know that they are either a boy or a girl but are trying to figure out exactly what that means (Seid, 114). The behaviors that children seem to learn do have gender specific characteristics. Examples of male appropriate behavior includes: aggression, independence and curiosity. Female behaviors reflect the opposite of the male behaviors: passivity, dependence and timidity (Howe, 3). Parents have a stro...
