| Summary: | The article discusses the rhetoric of "the poor boys" and the "feminisation" of day-care institutions and primary schools. Referring to international as well as the authors own research, some of the common understandings are questioned. Instead of seeing "essence" as the explanation for the existence of gender-stereotypes among children, focus is on children's never ending negotiations on gender. Attention is drawn to children as agents and to children's cultural constructions concerning the meaning and impact of gender. Gender appears to be of central importance to children's attempt to establish social boundaries, collective and individual identities through play and social interation. Qualified input from adults to these negotiations seems to be a diversity of masculinities and femininities, rather than conforming to a kind of "Tazan and Jane"-dichotomy.
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