ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the clear gender-based patterns that emerged from the research, but it does so with an awareness that what is written does not have universal applicability to every child in all contexts. It is important to read this chapter with the consciousness that each child’s developmental path is unique and dependent upon the interplay of a wide range of factors (e.g. social class, culture, gender, ethnicity, physical factors, environment and life experiences). Society may constrain an individual’s actions and choices, not least through a highly gender-polarized social structure, but rather than viewing girls and boys as polar opposites, one needs to recognize that individuals experience ‘multiple, diverse and contradictory ways of being’ (Davies, 1989, p. 140). In terms of viewing and reading preferences and responses to various texts the multiplicity of ‘ways of being’ results in an overlap in terms of the interests, concerns and capabilities of girls and boys. Although some writers such as Bronwyn Davies (1989) have argued that this bi-modal model of gender does not go far enough, I would suggest that it is the furthest point that this society has currently reached in terms of constructing and understanding gender and, as such, the young children involved in the study will be attempting to understand and conform with this conception of what counts as ‘gender appropriate’. The children’s expressed preferences and responses are probably indicative of their struggle to position themselves ‘correctly’ in gender terms within a society where such positioning is seen to be important.
