ABSTRACT
One of the first studies to examine how parents treat girls and boys differently was described in Patterns of Child Rearing. This chapter discusses how parents made distinctions in rearing their girls and boys in the domains of aggression and dependency. Although gender is associated with biological sex, gender actually refers to the “meanings that societies and individuals ascribe to male and female categories”. As such, gender is inherently socially constructed, and thus there is diversity in the ways that parents interact with girls and boys across cultures. In discussions of parenting girls and boys, it is important to first recognize that gender is a multidimensional construct that includes psychological, social, and behavioral components. As such, there is enormous individual diversity within gender categories. In addition to individual diversity of gender categories for children and adolescents, there is diversity of parents within families.
