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Social attitudes about male participation in the upbringing of children have changed considerably over the past few decades. Men are now seen as important for children’s development and learning. Research from many countries worldwide shows that in early childhood care and education (ECEC), male workers are welcomed by female colleagues and parents. In the last two decades there have been initiatives for more men in ECEC in several European countries. Nevertheless the proportion of male workers ECEC remains low worldwide. This article questions the persisting gender imbalance in ECEC and analyzes ambivalences regarding more men in the field. Based on recent gender theory, efforts and limits of strategies for more male students and workers in ECEC in Belgium, Norway and Germany are discussed. It is concluded that deeply held gendered attitudes and practices in the field of care and educational work with young children have to be put into question. More space in ECEC for embodied subjectivities is needed to overcome essentialist conceptions of differences between body and mind, women and men.

Methodology. The development of self-regulation in preschoolers is determined by the features of a cultural situation, which consists of a set of invariable normative rules. To abide by the cultural rules means that a child develops his/her “cultural congruence” (Bayanova). This process reflects the child’s evolution as an agent of a culture. The cognitive aspect of self-regulation was studied in the framework of the model of “executive functions” (Miyake). This model includes three related and simultaneously independent factors, such as Working Memory, Flexibility and Inhibitory Control.

The aim of the research is to explore how the assimilation of cultural rules of a “normative situation” (Veraksa) may influence the development of executive functions in preschoolers of different genders.

Method and structure of the research. 113 children aged 5-6 (58 boys and 55 girls) and 113 mothers (aged 24-44) took part in the research. All of the children attended kindergartens of Tatarstan. The assessment of cultural congruence was carried out using a questionnaire for parents, which included invariable rules for children 5-6 years old and allowed for assessing the extent to which children follow these rules. Diagnostics of executive functions was implemented with a set of techniques, which included the subtests of the test battery NEPSY-II (Korkman et al., 2007) and the DCCS (Zelazo, 2006).

Results. It was revealed that boys with a “higher” level of cultural congruence better develop verbal memory, whereas boys with a “low” level of congruence better switch from one task to another and better memorize visual images. The features of the development of executive functions in the group of girls on the whole do not depend on the level of their cultural congruence,

Conclusions. The data obtained indicate the gender specificity of the influence of cultural congruence on executive functions in preschoolers, which substantially clarifies the results obtained in other studies.

Gender education is a socially controlled process of development of girls and boys in the course of their gender socialization - educational foundations of culture of relationships and appropriate behavior. The question of gender in the education of children of preschool age is considered by the author in line with the close relationship with the analyzes of children’s main activity - play. Particular attention is paid to the role of hand-made toys in the development of the child’s play and the formation of gender awareness of boys and girls. Recommendations on the organization of joint activities of adults and children for the production of toys, play equipment for the development of play for boys and girls are introduced.

Relevance. This article is devoted to the problem of comparative analysis of preschoolers’ drawings on the theme “My family”, brought up in a full or incomplete family. This topic is extremely relevant not only because of the increase in divorces in Russia and the related difficulties of raising and developing young children, but also from the point of view of the data collection method. Typically, surveys of parents and other caring adults are used in such studies, while the “voice of a child” remains unaccounted for. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibilities of using children’s drawings to diagnose the peculiarity of the social situation of development in a modern family and the emotional well–being of a child in the family.

Research methodology and progress. The projective technique “Family Drawing” as modified by the authors was used in the work. The study involved 44 children from 4 years 9 months to 7 years, average age 5 years 10 months; 18 boys and 26 girls (41% and 59%).

The result of the study made it possible to confirm the invariance of the significance of various parameters of the children’s drawing on the theme “My family” over the past 25 years. Three key bipolar factors were identified for evaluating children’s family drawings: “Structured relationships in the family – Adult dominance”, “Inclusion in the family structure – Detachment from the family” and “Loneliness – Positive emotional connection with the father”.

Conclusions. These factors make it possible to record the peculiarities of the emotional well-being of modern boys and girls raised in full and incomplete families. Firstly, the girls’ drawings clearly show positive emotional well-being, identification with the mother and orientation towards traditional gender-role relationships in the family, while the boys’ drawings are distinguished by the dominance of the parental position of adults and the child’s identification with the family as a special social group. Secondly, the emotional well-being of children from single-parent families is clearly worse than that of children from full families, and boys from single-parent families find themselves in the most difficult social situation of development.