The Influence of Hometown Size on the Development of Gender Stereotypes in Children

The study aims at investigating the influence the size of the home town has on the evolution of gender stereotypes in Romanian preschool children (N=126). We investigated the differences in gender attributions made by girls and boys raised in a small town as opposed to a big city, in order to reveal particular ways of counterbalancing those stereotypes. The responses of children from the large city showed statistically significant differences on the items of “goodness”, “courage” and “hard work”. Preschoolers from the small town offered significantly different attributions to the items of “kindness”, “friendliness”, “hard work” and “courage”. Means of counterbalancing these stereotypes are suggested.