Patterns of gender development

Abstract

A comprehensive theory of gender development must describe and explain long-term developmental patterning and changes and how gender is experienced in the short term. This review considers multiple views on gender patterning, illustrated with contemporary research. First, because developmental research involves understanding normative patterns of change with age, several theoretically important topics illustrate gender development: how children come to recognize gender distinctions and understand stereotypes, and the emergence of prejudice and sexism. Second, developmental researchers study the stability of individual differences over time, which elucidates developmental processes. We review stability in two domains-sex segregation and activities/interests. Finally, a new approach advances understanding of developmental patterns, based on dynamic systems theory. Dynamic systems theory is a metatheoretical framework for studying stability and change, which developed from the study of complex and nonlinear systems in physics and mathematics. Some major features and examples show how dynamic approaches have been and could be applied in studying gender development.

Figure 1

Day-to-day variations in children's play partner choices as a function of sex of child and long-term patterning. Observed play partner choices were summed and averaged per day of observation using the following: Each boy play partner was given a +1; each girl was given a −1. Children with ID numbers 1032 and 1022 were girls; children with ID numbers 1041 and 1045 were boys. For girls, data below the 0 point represent same-sex peer play; for boys, data above the 0 point represent same-sex play. The graphs at the top of the page (1032 and 1041) represent patterns of children who tend to show long-term preferences for same-sex play; the graphs at the bottom of the page represent patterns of children who tend to show long-term preferences for playing with both sexes. Variability is apparent in all the graphs (DiDonato & Martin 2009).

Figure 2

A socially competent girl's state space grid, illustrating her patterns of play with peers of different sexes and different behavioral qualities over the first 20 observed interactions. The x-axis represents the sex of the peer with whom the target girl interacts; the y-axis represents the behavioral quality of the peers as determined by clustering teacher ratings of children's behavior. Each solid circle represents a single observed interaction, and the open circle represents the first observed interaction (with a socially competent girl). Lines between circles represent the ordering of observations. This girl showed strong sex selection: 16 of her first 20 interactions were with girls. She also showed a preference for interacting with socially competent girls but not boys (Martin 2008).