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TIME for Kids to Learn Gender Stereotypes: Analysis of Gender and Political Leadership in a Common Social Studies Resource for Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2019

J. Celeste Lay Open the ORCID record for J. Celeste Lay [Opens in a new window] ,
Mirya R. Holman ,
Angela L. Bos ,
Jill S. Greenlee ,
Zoe M. Oxley  and
Allison Buffett
J. Celeste Lay
Affiliation:
Tulane University
Mirya R. Holman
Affiliation:
Tulane University
Angela L. Bos
Affiliation:
College of Wooster
Jill S. Greenlee
Affiliation:
Brandeis University
Zoe M. Oxley
Affiliation:
Union College
Allison Buffett
Affiliation:
George Washington University
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Abstract

While early gendered messages mold children's expectations about the world, we know relatively little about the depictions of women in politics and exposure to gender stereotypes in elementary social studies curricula. In this article, we examine the coverage of political leaders in the children's magazine TIME for Kids, a source commonly found in elementary school classrooms. Coding all political content from this source over six years, we evaluate the presence of women political leaders and rate whether the leaders are described as possessing gender-stereotypic traits. Our results show that although TIME for Kids covers women leaders in greater proportion than their overall representation in politics, the content of the coverage contains gendered messages that portray politics as a stereotypically masculine field. We show that gendered traits are applied differently to men and to women in politics: feminine and communal traits are more likely to be applied to women leaders, while men and women are equally described as having masculine and agentic traits. Portrayals of women political leaders in stereotype-congruent ways is problematic because early messages influence children's views of gender roles.

Keywords

Gender stereotypespolitical socializationchildrensocial studies educationrole modelswomen leaders
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association, 2019

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Footnotes

The authors are grateful to Chloe Cook, Mike Stalteri, and other undergraduate students who worked as coders on this project. The work was also improved greatly thanks to Jennifer Lawless, who served as a discussant for an early version presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.

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