Re: Toys and gender: Some other thoughts

V1958G@VM.TEMPLE.EDU
Fri, 01 Nov 96 07:34:53 EST


I, too, am finding the discussoin of toys and gender interesting and woul=
d
be interested in pursuing the idea of research. Somehow I had the impress=
ion
that there's a lot of research (maybe in the field of communications) on =
this,
but maybe this impression is based on there being a lot of Journalistic
interest/surveys, rather than studies coming out of the education field??=

In any event, as part of the "Women & Men in US Society" course
=ECsociologyU I teach, I assign a final oral project in which the student=
s are
asked to examine children's toys, games, videos in terms of gender stereo=
types.
Believe me, they never have any trouble coming up with ideas, and the
stereotypeing is, basically, so crude and obvious, that my 1st-year colle=
ge
students with 3 months of "gender role thery" to draw from =ECand often n=
ot
a lot of real interest in the subject :>U almost always comes up with
with a pretty thorough analysis.

Perhaps it's time for a rigorous and systematic survey of toys and games.=

nancy morse-kelly
temple university
v1958g@vm.temple.edu
Be


new message to this message