Becoming a Gendered Body Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Becoming a Gendered Body - Essay Example While these ideas are evident in adult bodies, there has not been a great deal of study into how these ideas are originally formed as it is commonly assumed to be natural. Martin suggests it is instead something created at about preschool age, at least partly as a result of the hidden school curriculum in which students are taught to behave in specific ways to facilitate the needs of the classroom, teaching and reinforcing specific gendered behavior in the process. The research method for the study was participant observation as the researcher observed five different preschool classes in two different preschools located in the same city. One was located near the city's university and the other was a Catholic school. The study group consisted of 112 children and 14 teachers in which all of the teachers were female. Of the children, 58 percent were boys and 42 percent were girls with very little diversity of ethnicities and little or no difference in economic class as all of the childr en were classified as having come from middle class homes. The researcher and her assistant observed activities within the classroom approximately three times per week for eight months, taking notes and trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible within the classroom setting. Observations were taken during both structured and unstructured activity times. Field notes were then analyzed using Hyper-Research software. Martin determined that gender among young children is created through a variety of factors. One of the most significant factors was dress/body adornment. Surprisingly, she found that most little girls were dressed in pink or pastels almost every day while boys were dressed in primary colors, green, orange and black, but never pink.