Fagot - SCT And Enculturation

A key behavior / value encultured in children is their perspective on Gender Roles - This includes what they find appropriate, acceptable, and desirable for people based on their biological or chosen gender.
Studies show that children learn through rewards and praise of certain behavior, and punishment and criticism of other behaviors.
Fagot investigated gender roles through a NATURALISTIC STUDY of how parents and children interacted. She visited 24 families (12 with a boy child and 12 with a girl child) with a child between 20 and 24 months old (2 years old)
PARTICIPANT NOTES: They were all white (gora pakoras), both parents lived at home, however they all had different living situations (university housing, income parity)
Fagot also employed two observers to minimise Instrumentation - The two observers agreed a lot
In this study, Fagot visited and observed toddlers and their parents using a checklist - The purpose of the checklist was to investigate the reaction of the parent to the child when the child did not behave “gender appropriate.”
The checklist included 46 behaviours from children, and 19 reactions to those behaviours from parents.
The results of the study were that parents reacted significantly more favourably when the child engaged in “Gender-Appropriate behaviour”, and statistically more negatively if the Child engaged in behaviours that they found “Not gender appropriate”.

Their Findings:

Boys were more likely to be home alone than girls
Parents gave boys and girls positive and negative criticism depending on what toys they played with and how
Parents criticised girls more and boys less when they engaged in large motor activities such as running and jumping.
Parents also gave more positive responses when girls asked for help rather than boys.
Fagot Et al followed up on their observations by conducting interviews with the parents they observed
They were interviewed on how they perceived their interactions with their own children: Although the way they saw it didn’t correlate with how they thought they were treating their child - Showing that the enculturation of gender roles is not a conscious behavior.