Gender Stereotype Reduction Framework Lessons From An Early Childhood Development Play Centre Mooiplaats School Chipinge Zimbabwe

Abstract

Gender stereotyping manifests in all the communities of the world and it remains a contemporary social problem. Drawing from the observed gendered play material usage at Mooiplaats Primary School in Chipinge peri-urban, Zimbabwe this article unpacks the motivation for the practice and proposes a framework which could be used to reduce it. The study adopted the qualitative research approach and data were collected by observing 15 boys and 15 girls in Early Childhood Development using play materials and by interviewing purposively sampled 10 parents/guardians of ECD learners, two ECD teachers and the Teacher-in-Charge of infants. Besides, play material inventories were analysed to establish purchase preferences and the patterns of usage. All this was done basing on the lenses of Oakely‘s Gender Socialisation Theory. Emerging themes indicate that biological and cultural underpinnings influence the children‘s social environment comprising families, peers, media, schools, inter-alia, to recommend some gender specific play materials. Gender can be reduced through understanding its source, how it is practised and by appreciating the benefits of its reduction. The GSRF proposed is undergirded by sources of gender, followed by gender practices, gender reduction initiatives and benefits of gender reduction. Community surveillance is necessary to see through its implementation