Sex Differences in Children's Play

Sex differences in play have led many scholars to suggest that boys and girls grow up and live in separate cultures. The differences have considerable significance for mental health, social relationships, and cognition across the life span. This chapter addresses the following questions: What are these differences? How do they come about? What do they mean for the world outside of play? What can they tell us about sex differences in other characteristics? Sex differences in childhood play are important for many reasons: they are large, they lead to sex differences in other characteristics (including cognition and adjustment), and they reflect the joint effects of biological predispositions, the social world, and children's constructions of that world.