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Wee Ones Wee Circle
1.06.2021
A Children’s Parliament consultation for the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls.
Purpose
The purpose of this consultation was to gather ideas from children aged between 4 and 6 about what they think the differences are between boys and girls, and to explore gender stereotypes, thinking about how they impact on play or choices or future aspirations. We hope that Wee Ones Wee Circle will encourage reflection and discussion about how we tackle gender inequality and make Scotland an equal, happy, healthy and safe place for all children to grow up; a place where they can be any kind of girl or boy they want to be.
What we did
Children’s Parliament staff worked with 22 children who attend Manor Park Primary School, Aberdeen. The school has been a partner in different Children’s Parliament programmes over several years. As always, we are grateful to our colleagues in the school for their support and openness to engage in challenging and innovative explorations of childhood and learning. In Wee Ones Wee Circle we explored gender and stereotypes with the children, taking time across two days using play, games and creative activities to explore the topic at hand. We worked within the school setting, indoors and outdoors, and we introduced commercial toys and games that children are exposed to. We worked with groups of boys, girls and mixed groups. We also allowed for unstructured play time which gave us an opportunity to observe the children’s self-directed play and interactions.