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The present study is designed to shed some lights on the development of sex-role stereotype conception in Korean children. In order to execute the task, some auxiliary questions are raised: (1) How have some sex-role stereotype conceptions in children been changed as their ages advance? (2) Is there similarity between patterns of change in children's cognition of sex-role stereotypes toward individuals on the one hand and their conception of sex-role stereotypes as the social convention dictates on the other? (3) Is there resemblance between their conception of sex-role stereotypes toward adults and children? (4) What would be the relationship between children's conception of gender constancy and their sex-role stereotype conception?
The development of sex-role stereotype conception has been approached from two distinct points of view. One alternative is cognition-developmental where sex-role stereotype conception is taken to change as cognitive capacities evolve. On this theory, one comes to have a sex-role stereotype conception as he/she understands the gender concepts and he/she tends to change the stereotype as he/she has cognitive capacities developed. The other point of view is to hold that sex role stereotype conception is understanding of social convention.
What is the research strategy adopted in this study? It takes 250 Korean children ranging from ages of nursery and kindergarten to 2nd, 4th and 6th graders, each group consisting of 50, to show patterns of change in their sex-role stereotype conceptions. The study requires children to make two kinds of evaluation as to given figures, absolute and relative. The former is argued to indicate their mental representation or cognitive sex-role stereotype conception and the latter is discussed to demonstrate their conceptions which have been socially molded. This is made to allow comparison of the two types of sex-role stereotype conceptions, cognitive and social.
Some results of the present study may be briefly summed up as follows: (1) Children's cognitive conception of sex-role stereotypes which is manifested in their absolute evaluations is already present at the age level of nursery, most contrasted at the kindergarten stage, less prejudiced at the 2nd grade and much improved at the 6th grade. This is to show that sex-role conception in children's cognition is not fixed but transient. (2) Children's social conception of it which is approached through their relative evaluations is there at the level of nursery age, most partisan at the kindergarten stage, not much leveled off at the 6th grade. Their social conception does not much change despite their maturity in cognition. This may be explainable perhaps from the assumption that their social relationship did not change much. (3) The sex-role stereotype conception which dictates discrimination against women is social in view of the fact that children's cognitive conception of it tends to disappear but their social conception survives. Then, steps to be taken to overcome the discrimination is not to remold consciousness of individuals in certain way but to adjust social relationship. (4) Children's conception of it is stronger toward children than adults. The cause for this gap may be found in the fact that their thought is bound to their perception and experience since they are under either the pre-operational period or the concrete operational stage. (5) Among the kindergarten children, those who have gender constancy conception more developed tend to have sex-role stereotype conception more divided. This tendency may be understood by the assumption that the high level of ego-centrism generally found among the kindergarten children exhilerate their sex-constancy conception to enforce sex-role classification more entrenched.

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