Alina Morawska

Parenting and the development of gender roles

Gender role stereotypes play an important role in all areas of human development. They affect our emotions, choices, and behaviours in multiple contexts, and set the stage for prejudice and discrimination. While adult gender roles may have changed over the last few decades, most children are exposed to a continuing barrage of stereotyped gender roles from birth: from parents, the media, and peers, and these stereotypes have not changed significantly over time. Many parents express an interest in raising their children in a way that deemphasizes gender, yet there no existing evidence-based approaches focused on minimising the effects of gender role stereotypes in early childhood. This research aims to:

• Provide a longitudinal description of the early home environment and its influence on infants’ gendered development, with a particular emphasis on the role of parents and specific parenting strategies.
• Assess the efficacy and mechanisms of change of a brief parenting program delivered prenatally in promoting an early learning environment that deemphasises the role of gender via a randomised controlled trial evaluating proximal program outcomes in the first year of life.

Healthy habits: Parenting and the development of health behaviours in the first years of life

Parents’ ability to guide their children in developing ‘healthy habits’ is key to supporting children’s short- and long-term health and wellbeing. Establishing healthy behaviours in early childhood can lay the foundation for a lifetime of healthy habits and may have greater impact on long-term health than attempting to change entrenched adult behaviour. This program of research aims to establish the key facilitators and barriers to for children and their parents to engaging in healthy habits, and evaluate interventions to promote the development of early health behaviours in young children.