Thesis: What we learn in schools can affect our social opinions very strongly.
How does what we learn in school affect our opinions? As children develop, there are many environmental influences on their socialization to adult roles. Influences include parents, media, peers and school experience. The reading materials children use in school show males and females in various roles; the portrayal of males and females in those materials has a strong impact on how children view male and female roles in society. This overview of literature dealing with the …show more content…
The establishment of Sex Roles in 1975 as a forum for this research represented an important milestone in the field. In this article, we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Sex Roles and, in particular, its contributions to the field of research on children’s and adolescents’ gender development. We examine the trends in research on gender development published in Sex Roles since its inception and use this analysis as a vehicle for exploring how the field has grown and evolved over the past few decades. We begin with a brief review of the history of this field of research since 1975. Then, we present a descriptive assessment of articles published on gender development in Sex Roles over time, and link this assessment to general trends that have occurred in the study of gender development over the past 35 years. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for the field of gender development. In particular, we highlight areas in which the journal could play a role in promoting more diversity in topics, methods, and ages employed in gender development