Children's Perception of the Competence of Boys and Girls

Abstract

44 first and 46 third graders' perceptions of the competence of boys and girls was assessed. Using a three-point scale, subjects indicated how well they thought either a boy or a girl was performing a variety of activities previously classified as masculine, feminine, or neutral. The data indicated that the 59 boys and 39 girls tended to perceive the child performing the sex-appropriate activity as the more competent. In regard to neutral activities, boys showed a belief in the greater competence of males whereas girls indicated no sex differentiation in their perceptions.

Toy‐playing behavior, sex‐role orientation, spatial ability, and science achievement

“…Historically, this group has not received wide acceptance from parents, teachers, and/or peers. Even in this decade, parents, teachers (Schlosser & Algozzine, 1980) and peers (Bridges & Del-Ciampo, 1981;Sigelman, 1984) have been reluctant to accept cross-sex-typed boys with the same level of acceptance afforded masculinely-oriented boys. Negative feedback (in the form of pressure to conform to a masculine sex-role, i.e., not to act "like a girl or sissy") directed toward this group may be unfounded.…”

“…Historically, femininely oriented girls were thought to be well-adjusted people. Parents, teachers (Schlosser & Algozzine, 1980), and peers (Bridges & Del-Ciampo, 1981;Sigelman, 1984) tend to offer little negative feedback to girls who behave within the traditional set of feminine behaviors. Even so, femininely oriented girls who reported low-playing behavior in all toy categories had very poor science achievement scores.…”