Abstract
Children play an important role in society as future heirs. Environmental factors influence these roles in terms of time and place. These environmental factors include culture, religion and politics, or even economic, political and historical conditions. Children may experience different patterns of behaviour depending on their cultural environment. They learn how to take on roles that conform to cultural norms to survive in the community. According to the cultural context, parents and families, as the first human beings to socialize children, create gender roles according to the gender of the children. The gender roles of children vary according to the norms of society in different countries. The Islamic Republic of Iran, a country where the fieldwork took place, has strong cultural and religious norms. These norms are due to various factors, including historical aspects. How can societal norms play an important role in children's gender socialization? This study seeks to examine the role of parents and their educational methods in the gender socialization of children. On the other hand, it looks at how society's cultural perspectives influence parents' educational methods. Finally, to examine how children understand the concept of gender and gender roles in their daily lives. To answer these questions, eight families were randomly selected and studied by observation, semi-structured interview, and visual stimulus methods. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic conditions and during the research process, two methods, semi-structured interview and visual stimulus, were combined during the research process. The main information provided is more from the interview method.
This research attempted to make a bridge between childhood studies and psychology from the beginning. To achieve this goal, theories of child studies, including social construction and structural perspectives and gender theories and developmental psychology, have been used to analyze the provided information through their lens.
The provided data led the researcher to understand how gender socialization helps children adopt gender roles according to cultural norms. Some changes during past decades shaped and reshaped gender roles and, in some situations, provided a gap between parents' and children's gender perspectives. However, the significant role of external impacts, such as economic and political, were discussed.