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The purpose of this study was to examine age and gender differences in perceptions of gender-typed physical activities and to investigate the relationship between children's and parents' perceptions. Participants included 357 students in Grades K, 2, 4, and 6 and their parents (n = 455) from two elementary schools in Utah. The Physical Activity Stereotyping Index was used to assess both children's and parents' perceptions. Boys scored higher (more stereotypical in perceptions) on the Index than girls. Students in Kindergarten and Grade 2 scored significantly higher than those in Grades 4 and 6, while all adult (parents) groups were less stereotypical in their beliefs than all student groups. Significant correlations were obtained for spouses' scores (r = .44, p < .001) and for parents' and their children's scores (r = .24, p < .02).

This paper provides an expanded discussion of issues raised in our 1990 experimental study, with particular focus upon the differential cognitive, affective, and psychomotor consequences to girls and boys of gender-typed, sex-segregated play. Evidence is provided that, as agents of socialization, teachers and schools can enlist practices and provide structure to foster cross-sex interaction and behavior. Nonstereotypical play is advocated so that each sex can enjoy the benefits typically accruing only to the opposite; correspondingly, and in light of a society not yet gender-aschematic, psychological androgyny is invoked as the developmental ideal.

Protocols of 768 children, ages 6 to 12 years, provided the basis for revision of scoring and development of norms.