DISCUSSION

1. Gender Differences in Young Children’s Play Qualities in Gender-Segregated and Gender-Integrated Peer Interactions Kathrine M. Galligan, Richard A. Fabes, Carol Lynn Martin, Laura D. Hanish, and Priscilla M. Goble Figure 2 Activity Level and Negative Emotion in Gender-Segregated and Gender-Integrated Interactions for Boys and Girls Figure 3 Difference in Gender-Typed Activity Play in Gender-Segregated and Gender-Integrated Interactions for Boys and Girls ABSTRACT RESULTS • The goal was to explore gender differences in play qualities, emotions, and gender-typed activities and how these varied as a function of gender composition of the children’s play-groups (gender-segregated vs. gender-integrated groups). • Data revealed that boys’ play consisted of more rough and tumble play (RT), higher activity levels, higher negative emotion, and more aggression than girls’ play and this pattern was accentuated in gender-segregated interactions (GS-I; when boys played with all boys). • Boys were also more gender-typed in their activity play whereas girls were more flexible; however, in gender-integrated interactions (GI-I), boys’ activities took on more gender-neutral qualities. • Descriptive Analyses • There were significant gender differences on all variables except positive emotion, neutral activities, and adult present • Boys spent more time in GS-I than GI-I whereas girls spent more time in GI-I than GS-I (Table 1) • Age was related to many of the study indices and was controlled for in analyses • Table 1 • Proportion of Time Spent in Gender-Segregated and Gender-Integrated Interactions • a items significantly differ across rows at p at least < .05, b items significantly differ between columns at p at least < .05. • Analyses • We conducted a series of 2 (gender of child) X 2 (GS-I vs. GI-I) repeated-measures ANCOVAs with gender of child as the between-subjects factor and play group composition as the within-subjects factor on all 8 DVs: RT play, (2) Activity Level, (3) Aggression, (4) Play Near Adults (5) Positive Emotion, (6) Negative Emotion, (7) Gender-typed activity play, & (8) Neutral-typed activity play. • All significant interactions were explored with simple-effects tests comparing boys and girls in GS-I and GI-I. • Gender Differences as a Function of Play Context • Significant child gender by play-group composition interactions were found for RT and aggression (Figure 1), activity level and negative emotion (Figure 2), and gender-typed activities (Figure 3). • Boys were significantly higher than girls in RT and activity level in GS-I and GI-I but higher than girls in negative emotion and aggression only in GS-I. • There were no significant differences in negative emotion of aggression in GI-I. • In GS-I, both boys and girls spent more time in same-gender activities than other-gender activities and the difference between same- and other-gender activity play was marginally significant. • However, in GI-I, girls spent more time in same-gender activities than other-gender whereas boys spent almost equal amounts of time in same- and other-gender activities. • There were no significant effects for positive emotion, play near adults, and neutral play activities • Figure 1 • Rough and Tumble Play and Aggression in Gender-Segregated and Gender-Integrated Interactions for Boys and Girls INTRODUCTION • By preschool age, boys and girls show marked differences on a number of emotional, social, and behavioral outcomes (Ruble et al., 2006). Some gender differences may be due to gender segregation (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987), for instance, increases in gender-typed play (Martin & Fabes, 2001). • To understand these processes, it is important to compare children’s behavior GS-I and GI-I groups but few studies make these comparisons (Fabes, Martin, & Hanish, 2003). PRESENT STUDY • Goals: • To examine how gender differences in children’s play qualities (RT, activity level, aggression, and play near adults) vary as a function of GS vs. GI groups. • H1: Boys will spend more time in RT play, have higher activity levels, have higher aggression, and play farther from adults than will girls, but the differences will be exaggerated in GS-I. • To investigate how positive and negative emotions vary as a function of GS vs GI. • H2: Boys will experience higher levels of negative emotion than will girls whereas girls will display higher levels of positive emotion and these differences will be more pronounced in GS-I. • To explore how same-gender-typed, other-gender-typed, and neutral activity play vary as a function of GS vs. GI play-groups. • H3: Boys will show more gender-typed activity choices than girls and this effect will be stronger in GS-I. In contrast, girls will be more flexible in their activity choices in both GS-I and GI-I. METHOD Participants and Procedures Participants were 89 preschoolers (46 boys, 43 girls; M ages = 48 and 47 months) from 3 preschools. Coded 10-sec observations of children’s naturally-occurring play activities over an academic year (M # observations/child = 209, SD = 116). Measures Classroom observers (38 with 1 male) coded children’s peer interactions with male and female peers, RT, aggression, play activity, and whether an adult was present (within 5ft). Activity level was rated on a 4-point likert scale from 1 (none or extremely low) to 4 (very high). Positive emotion, anger, and sad/anxious were rated similarly from 1 (none) to 4 (strong). A composite negative emotion score was formed by taking the mean of anger and sad/anxious. Reliabilities on all variables ranged from .85 to .99 across the year. Gender-typed categories were derived from previous work (Goble et al., 2010). Activities in which boys and girls significantly differed (p < .05) were categorized as masculine and feminine respectively; all non-significant activities were categorized as neutral. Repeated measures ANOVAs confirmed the overall pattern for the present data. Proportion scores were calculated for RT, aggression, adult present, same-, other-, and neutral-typed play activities by summing across each variable in GS-I and GI-I and dividing by the total observations in each type of play-group separately. GS-I were defined as play that involved only children of the same gender whereas GI-I were defined as play that involved both genders. Difference scores for gender-typed activities in GS and GI were created by subtracting other-gender activities in GS-I and GI-I from same-gender activities in GS-I and GI-I separately. DISCUSSION • Results supported the hypothesis that gender differences in play qualities tend to be accentuated in gender-segregated interactions whereas gender differences are less pronounced or non-existent in gender-integrated interactions. • Gender-integrated interactions may appear less gender-typed because, for those interactions to be successful, or for girls and boys to be interested in playing with one another, children may have to be less gender-typed in their behaviors and toy choices. • Alternatively, children (particularly boys) may be more likely to engage in cross-gender play/behavior when there is at least one other same-gender peer present as in the majority of gender-integrated interactions in the current study. This project was funded by NICHD Grant R01 HD045816-01 to Carol Lynn Martin, Richard A. Fabes, and Laura D. Hanish For further information send an email to: Kathrine M. Galligan, Kathrine.Galligan@asu.edu