Call for help

[gendercriticalstudent]

I really need the help of the smartest women I know, all of you on this board.

I’m about to embark on a 3000 word research project in preparation for my dissertation next year. The research project should link.

I was considering doing my project on- Has there been a rise in transgender children in Uk schools? ..with a view to perhaps focussing on equality teaching and the removal of gender restrictions in classrooms for my dissertation.
I am finding it very difficult to find good research for my project. My project should critically evaluate the research of others and their findings.

Any ideas, suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated 🙌

[NeurotrashWarrior]

parentingsciencegang.org.uk/web-chats/how-different-are-womens-and-mens-brains/

This group of parents are undergoing lots of research experiments, a few of which are linked to gender and toys, books etc.

There's a Facebook group you can join to take part or look at how they've approached the research. They also do lots of q and a with various researchers too.

There might be something in there that fits what you're looking for or adds to your ideas.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

A recent experiment was reading the same books nightly, books chosen to either emphasise stereotypes or challenge , with questionnaires done before and after for example. I don't think the results have been collated yet.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

This one:

parentingsciencegang.org.uk/experiments/superhero-parents-and-gender-stereotypes/

[NeurotrashWarrior]

parentingsciencegang.org.uk/news/the-story-so-far-ltbt-psg/

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Lots of links to follow there.

[gendercriticalstudent]

Thank you neuro I’ll get on those immediately.

[Skyzalimit]

Instead of deciding what the answer is, read the research and then decide.

All research is biased, but peer reviewed research will present a range of useful data- you don't have to accept the writer's analysis.

Start with a library search for articles in your area of interest.

FYI you won't get marks for referencing Transgender Trend

[sashh]

For early childhood studies I'd stick to small children. Am I right in thinking that you are looking at children up to about age 7?

Personally I would look at children's books and have a look how often there is a male and how often there is a female and look at what they are doing.

Maybe pick a reading scheme used in reception and compare with 'Janet and John' or another older reading scheme. Are gender stereotypes enforced? How do they compare?

I think it is useful to frame your research as a question, so if you were to look at reading books something like, " from 1960 to 2019, how is gender portrayed in early years reading schemes used now and in the past?"

Whatever you decide, once you have your question do a literature review. This should mainly be from journals but you could have some fun with mumsnet - have a look at the small feminist acts thread. Don't quote it too much, maybe just one reference to it and criticise who the people posting on here are.

You can then look at the books themselves. Decide exactly what you are looking for and create table or spreadsheet so if you want incidences of gender stereotypes being reinforced have a column for that.

Once you have your table you can analyse it.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Good advice above.

I'll pm you today about some other similar avenues that might be of interest.

[FeedMeBooks]

Raises question about rogd. journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Re books, very good one in schools. I teach in an sen school, mainly asd pupils. We did have a boy come from mainstream who was a great reader but point blank refused to read a reading book on Cinderella as it was 'for girls.' Granted it was a deathly dull, long traditional tale, and his autism was driving the rigidity around it, but clearly this was something quite deep in him. He read it in the end after a few pep talks but the rigidity really struck me as I've never had a child refuse to read a reading book.

My own son is in ks1 and they've started bringing library books home (school library); they're all dungeons and dragons, pictures of dragons and fighting and we can't read them to him as they're far to scary for him. I find it odd as when at the library he's more into much less stereotyped stuff. So wondering if they're choosing them in friendship groups and if there's any influences there; ninjago is definitely a factor. I loved dragons too so I'm not hugely bothered but find it interesting.

[NeurotrashWarrior]

And watch the bbc stuff I posted upline in relation to this.,