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Dolls And Gender Research

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Dolls are effective identity objects that encourage children to achieve gender identities through play. Consequently, children's doll-play is an identity-building method for gender negotiation as children collaborate to work out who is being who. A study conducted by Wohlwend (2012) showed that playing with dolls guides children's identity formation and where they learn the expected practices for 'doing gender.' The study furthermore showed the massive amount of times children correct one another, and this further demonstrated how gender performance intertwines with doll play and enforces expectations that boys could imitate dolls but should not imitate female characters.

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