gender, children's literature and emergent consciousness ??

This is my essay question

How does gender operate in children's literature, and how do you think that constructs a child's emergent consciousness of its own identity?

I have began writing it however I'm struggling to relate to the 'ermergent consciousness' partically because Im not entirely sure what it means but also I don't know how to progress further with this.

For the structure of the essay is it more effective to give other oppions before my own alongside Harvard referencing for support and then my own as a strong arguement in the conclusion?

Thanks for your help Shaunna

Gender is understood to be a social construct. The ways in which people act supposedly determine gender.
i would not have assumed so, but perhaps literature is influential enough to allow a child to identify with a character, in which case the child may try to act like the character, even though biologically, the character is of the same/different sex but projects itself to be of a different gender. Therefore the child, in attempting to recreate the character by acting it out in real life, may lead to gender confusion?

i really do not know, for i have not done any research on this nor am i qualified to give advice. What i have done is suggested my opinion, which i hope can help you in some way.

This seems like an interesting topic, that does require a fair amount of research (Kimmel does a lot of research on gender identity, so perhaps you can refer to him).

By the way, this thread does not belong in the Undergraduate Admissions Essays section.
Anyways, good luck

Great discussion, Faisal. I was reading recently about a strange way we keep people in their roles:
When adults expect boys to be tough and girls to be cute, it makes them develop accordingly, and then in the future the girls experience a "glass ceiling" that prevents them from rising up the corporate ladder, etc.

People celebrate girls' cuteness and boys' toughness and they don't even realize that this is oppressive!

I'm sure this applies in literature, too. If you are in an early childhood ed. program, you must discuss modeling a lot as a way of teaching. In literature, characters model behaviors, too!