Gender Development

Gender development is the process in which a girl or a boy experiences physical, cognitive,
emotional and social changes to prepare them for their adult roles as man or a women. Gender is an
important consideration in development. It is a way of looking at how social norms and power
structures impact on the lives and opportunities available to different groups of men and women.
The study of gender development is a rich and varied subject. We all have personal experience with
development, but is sometimes difficult to understand how and why people grow, learn, and act as
they do (Priess, 2011).

When do you learn to be a boy or a girl? What factors influenced your gender (role) development?
How do these factors ensure your behaviour is consistence with expectations? Therefore, this paper
describes the prominent explanations on these questions as they are vital in gender development.

When do you learn to be a boy or a girl?

Being a boy or girl, for most children, is something that feels very natural. At birth, babies are
assigned male or female based on physical characteristics. This refers to the sex or assigned gender
of the child. Meanwhile gender identity refers to an internal sense people have of who they are that
comes from an interaction of biological traits, developmental influences, and environmental
conditions. This may be male or female, somewhere I between, a combination of both or either
(Rafferty, 2018).

An individual’s awareness of being a boy or a girl or gender identity, and the emergence of a range
of gender typical behaviours, is established by the age of three years. The earliest features of gender
incongruence may start to become apparent about this age. By the end of five years will
spontaneously characterize others by sex (boy or girl). From the age of seven years, children
become more flexible in how they apply gender stereotypes and begin appreciate that there are
differences between individuals in how they express their gender identity (Williams, 2013).

What factors influenced your gender (role) development?

Although the formation of gender identity is not completely understood, many factors have been
suggested as influencing its development. Biological factors that may influence gender identity
include; pre and post-natal hormone levels and genetic make ups; for instance, boys and girls are
born with distinctive sexual organs, and become further differentiated when sexual characteristics
emerge upon puberty. Biological factors influence people’s emotions. Social and environmental
factors may include ideas regarding gender roles conveyed by family, authority figures, mass
media, and other influential peoples in a child’s life in his/her own society. According to social-
learning theory, children develop their gender identity through observing and imitating the
behaviours of the people of the same gender and punished for imitating the gender-linked behaviors
of others; they are often rewarded for imitating the behaviors of the people of the same gender and
punished for imitating the behaviours of another gender. For example male children will often be
rewarded for imitating their father’s love of building a house or redirected in some way if they
imitate their older sister’s love of dolls. Children are shaped and molded by the people surrounding
them, who they try to imitate and follow (Paris, Ricardo, Raymond, & Johnson, 2021).

How do these factors ensure your behaviour is consistence with expectations?

Biological factors play a huge role in shaping children’s physical development. Naturally occurring
chemical messenger compounds in the body known as hormones are responsible for coordinating
the appearance of these physical differences. For instance; a boy sees that beard starts growing on
his face and that is when he thinks and acts like a man not a boy and does man stuff such as helping
his father to build a house. Or even a girl when breasts started growing she behaves as a woman not
a girl and does woman stuff such as; cooking and taking care of the house (MentalHelp, 2017).

Social and environmental factors influencing gender development to ensure our behaviour is
consistence with expectations. Children’s upbringing and social environment impact their gender
development and behaviour along the way. This work can be summarized by stating that children’s
interests, preferences, behaviours and overall self-concept are strongly influenced by parental and
authority figure teachings regarding sexual stereotypes occurring in or before the early portion of
middle childhood children who are taught that certain traits or activities are appropriate or
inappropriate for them to engage because they are a boy or girl do tend to internalize and be
influenced by these teachings in later life to come. For example; girls who are informed that boys
who are better at math than they are may report that they dislike math and disclaim their interest in
that subject. They may go on to believe that they are not good at this academic subject, and to
perform poorly on math tests, homework and assignments. So they behave in a way in which they
imitate from their own members in the community and environment they come from or where they
heard from as stated by (Gu, 2021). Changes in behaviour are a result of an individual’s response to
events (stimuli) that occur in the environment around them.

However, to sum up the points gender development is the process in which a girl or a boy
experiences physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes to prepare them for their adult roles
as man or a women. Gender is an important consideration in development. It is a way of looking at
how social norms and power structures impact on the lives and opportunities available to different
groups of men and women. Being a boy or girl, for most children, is something that feels very
natural. At birth, babies are assigned male or female based on physical characteristics. An
individual’s awareness of being a boy or a girl or gender identity, and the emergence of a range of
gender typical behaviours, is established by the age of three years. Biological factors that may
influence gender identity include; pre and post-natal hormone levels and genetic make ups; for
instance, boys and girls are born with distinctive sexual organs, and become further differentiated
when sexual characteristics emerge upon puberty. Social and environmental factors may include
ideas regarding gender roles conveyed by family, authority figures, mass media, and other
influential peoples in a child’s life in his/her own society. Biological factors play a huge role in
shaping children’s physical development. Naturally occurring chemical messenger compounds in
the body known as hormones are responsible for coordinating the appearance of these physical
differences. Social and environmental factors influencing gender development to ensure our
behaviour is consistence with expectations. Children’s upbringing and social environment impact
their gender development and behaviour along the way. Changes in behaviour are a result of an
individual’s response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment around them.

References
Gu. (2021). Factors Affecting Gender Identity. Retrieved from
[Link]:[Link]

MentalHelp. (2017). Factors Influencing Gender Identity. Retrieved from [Link]:

Priess. H.A. (2011). Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Retrieved August 1st 2021, from,
https//[Link]-anoverview|sciencedirecttopics.

Rafferty. J. (2018). Gender Identity Development in Children. Retrieved from American Academy
of Pediatrics (Copyright 2018): [Link]
Williams, S. (2020). Understanding Gender. New York. Digital Communication Inc.
 SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
EDY 2310 INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATION
PSYCHOLOGY
SEMESTER 2 2021
TASK # 1: DESCRIPTIVE PAPER

GENDER DEVELOPMENT

STUDENT INFORMATION
NAME: Benson JACOB
ID #: 2019311377
LECTURER: Mr John Y. HAKOYA
TUTOR : Mr Pes WILSON