Résultats de recherche

1. Objectifs

Intentions :
« The purpose of the present study is to adress the following question: Will parents encourage their sons and daughters to build gender-appropriate block configurations and what type of verbal behaviors will occur during their play? » (p. 4)
Questions/Hypothèses :
« It was hypothezied that:
1) Children will engage in gender-typed block play and construct gender-appropriate block configurations during thier play with their parents.
2) Fathers, more than mothers, will encourage their children to engage in gender-typed block play and construct sex-appropriate block configurations.
3) Children will be more verbally interactive with parent when the type of block play they engage in together is appropriate to the parents’ sex.
4) Parents who include more LEGO doll figures in their constructions will be more verbal than those who include more LEGO vehicles. » (pp. 49-50)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
The present study included twenty-four 2-parent English-speaking families and their school-aged children (ranging from 60 to 83 months). Twelve of the families were observed with their sons, while the remaining families were observed with their daughters. All subjects were recruited from various day care centers and/or elementary schools on the island of Montreal.

Instruments :
- Parent-child observations during a 10 minutes play session using a set of LEGO blocks. Each session was videotaped;
- For the coding of parent-child utterances : a combination of O’Brien and Nagle’s (1987) categories and the Psychosocial Processes Coding Scheme (Leaper, 1991; Leaper & Gleason, 1996);
- Varma’s (1980) five types of block play for block play measures.
Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique et anlayse de contenu

3. Résumé

« The present study examined the various constructions parents built with their sons and daughters using a set of LEGO blocks, in order to investigate whether parents encouraged block configurations appropriate to their child’s sex. Parents’ speech to their children during play was also investigated to examine whether any differences occurred as a result of parents’ and children’s sex, type of block play or an interaction of any of these three variables. Twenty-four children ranging in age from 60 to 83 months, and their parents participated in this study. Each parent was assigned the same task but was observed separately with their child. Every child was observed playing for 10 minutes with the father and for an additional 10 minutes with the mother. All observations took place in the family’s home. Results indicated that (1) fathers, more than mothers made greater distinctions based on a child’s sex, (2) children built more gender-typed block constructions with fathers, (3) mothers were significantly more talkative during play sessions than fathers, (4) children were more verbally interactive with mothers than fathers, (5) boys were more verbally interactive with mothers when the type of block play they engaged in together was appropriate to the mother’s sex. Findings are discussed in reference to Social Learning Theory. » (p. iii)