Abstract
A number of researches proved that toys are gender polarized. However, a relationship between conceptions of toys and own choice of toys for playing is not quite clear.
This paper presents results of research focused on observation and interviews with 453 children in the age of 3 to 7 years. Each child wasobserved while playing freely during one week, and consequently the child was asked several questions.
The questions were: which toys are used by boys and girls; if certain toys are for girls and boys inappropriate; and which toy does the asked child personally prefer. Analyses confirmed that children consider toys on the basis of gender.
When it comes to boys, mostly cars and boxes of bricks are associated with them, whereas, girls are associated with dolls and animals. Girls more often used negative demarcation of masculinity by stating thatdolls are inappropriate toys for boys.
As far as personal preferences and also real plays, these beliefs are followed by children at large, however, the relationships is stronger at boys thanat girls. In reality, girls play with a greater repertoire of toys and actually, they use toys thatare labelled as boyish.