Our datasets

We use Elfe data as well as our own qualitative survey.

French Longitudinal Study of Children (ELFE survey)

The Elfe survey is a large-scale interdisciplinary project that follows a cohort of 18,000 children born in France in 2011, over a period of twenty years. It is the first large-scale national longitudinal survey of this type in France and constitutes an original, unprecedented basis adapted to our problem. Part of our team contributed from the outset to the development of the questionnaires for this survey and the proposed analysis is based in particular on the modules of questions that we drafted to capture educational practices in terms of childcare, bodily socialisation and the sharing of parental tasks.

This survey has a representative sample of births in 2011 in metropolitan France. The child's two parents were interviewed separately according to a precise schedule: at birth (maternity survey in 2011, mothers only), at two-months-old (2011-12, mother and father), at one-year-old (2012, mother and father), at two-years-old (2013, mother and father), at three-and-a-half-years-old (2014, mother and father). Our analysis is based on the exploitation of these 4 surveys.

The parents were questioned on a very large number of themes, specifically their social, family and economic living conditions. This last part includes multiple dimensions: family environment, childcare, education, socialisation, material and socio-economic environment, migratory status, division of parental labour, psychomotor development, nutrition, etc. It incorporates a great deal of information that is of direct interest to us in dealing with the norms and practices put into action by parents in the construction of the gendered dispositions of their children. Specific questions on body care and appearance were asked of each of the parents, as well as questions on the sharing of parental and domestic tasks. The advantage of the longitudinal approach is that it allows us to see how, between the ages of 2 months and 3.5 years, mothers and fathers take charge of their daughter's and son's body care.

The qualitative survey: 18 families followed up until the third birthday of their second child

In addition to the statistical analysis of Elfe, we rely on a qualitative survey of 18 families who were questioned about their living conditions and their educational practices, particularly in terms of care practices and body models transmitted to their children. Unlike Elfe, which offers the possibility of exploring in detail the social and family variations of gendered socialisation in the general population, this survey focuses on a more restricted segment of the social stratification: heterosexual couples, parents of two children, who are both active and belong to intermediate and higher socio-professional categories, and who have higher education. By focusing on these academically endowed families, it is possible to verify the extent to which these parents, presented in the sociological literature as being the most committed to the egalitarian model in the education of girls and boys and the sharing of parental tasks, are moving towards or away from it. Working-class families are analysed using Elfe data, as will migrant families. Similarly, statistical analyses of single-parent families can be carried out. On the other hand, it is not possible at this stage to study homoparental families, as there are too few of them in the Elfe survey.