Development and Validation of the Gender Equality Parenting Scale for Infants and Children

The infant and toddler years are important periods in which gender role identity is formed, and parents need to support gender equality in parenting during this period. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to develop a scale for the gender equality in the parenting of infants and toddlers, and to verify its validity and reliability. To construct the items, the relevant literature was analyzed, and an open-ended questionnaire was used to construct the items, and the final draft of the items was constructed through content validity verification. Data from 625 parents raising infants and children were analyzed to verify the construct, discrimination, validity, and reliability of this scale. The results showed that the structure of the three factors was appropriate, and the discriminatory power between the items was confirmed. In addition, this scale was shown to be an appropriate model, and both its conceptual reliability and convergent validity met the appropriate requirements. Finally, the internal consistency of the items was .918, indicating reliability. In conclusion, the scale developed in this study consists of 27 items in three factors: gender equality values, gender equality parenting environment, and gender equality parenting methods, and was verified as a scale with high validity and reliability.