An Investigation of Parental Protectiveness of Young Children Travelling to School

Teachers in school are expected to provide similar experience for both girls and boys. Parents however, by their behaviour, may not be facilitating this. It has been suggested that sex roles are changing with the advent of the feminist movement. In an attempt to examine actual behaviour towards young girls and boys, children from 27 infant schools were observed attending and leaving school. It was predicted that parental behaviour would reflect traditional sex‐role attitudes by accompanying female children more than male. This was supported. It was observed that, in total, few children travelled unaccompanied.