Gender development + Values integration

Gender Development
Gender refers to an individual's anatomical sex, or sexual assignment,and the cultural and
social aspects of being male or female. An individual's personal sense of maleness or femaleness
is his or hergender identity. Outward expression of gender identity, according to cultural and
social expectations, is a gender role. Either gender may live out a gender role (a man or a
woman, for instance, can be a homemaker) but not a sex role, which is anatomically limited to
one gender (only a woman can gestate and give birth).
Gender identity

Gender identity appears to form very early in life and is most likely irreversible by age 4.
Although the exact cause of gender identity remains unknown, biological, psychological,
and social variables clearly influence the process. Genetics, prenatal and postnatal
hormones, differences in the brain and the reproductive organs, and socialization all
interact to mold a toddler's gender identity. The differences brought about by
physiological processes ultimately interact with sociallearning influences to establish
clear gender identity.
Psychological and social influences on gender identity

Gender identity is ultimately derived from chromosomal makeup and physical

appearance, but this derivation of gender identity does not mean that psychosocial
influences are missing. Gender socialization,or the process whereby a child learns the
norms and roles that society has created for his or her gender, plays a significant role in
the establishment of her or his sense of femaleness or maleness. If a child learns she is
a female and is raised as a female, the child believes she is a female; if a child is told he
is a male and is raised as a male, the child believes he is male.
Beginning at birth, most parents treat their children according to the appearance of their
genitals. Parents even handle their baby girls less aggressively than their baby boys.
Children quickly develop a clear understanding that they are either female or male, as
well as a strong desire to adopt genderappropriate mannerisms and behaviors. This
understanding normally occurs within 2 years of age, according to many authorities. In
short, biology sets the stage, but children's interactions with social environments
actually determine the nature of gender identity.

Gender roles

Gender roles are both cultural and personal. These roles determine how males and
females think, speak, dress, and interact within the context of society. Learning plays a
role in this process of shaping gender roles. These gender schemas are deeply
embedded cognitive frameworks regarding what defines masculine and feminine. While
various socializing agentseducators, peers, movies, television, music, books, and
religionteach and reinforce gender roles throughout a child's life span, parents
probably exert the greatest influence, especially when their children are very young.
Developmentalists indicate that adults perceive and treat female and male infants
differently. Parents probably do this in response to having been recipients of gender
expectations as young children themselves. Traditionally, fathers teach boys how to fix
and build things; mothers teach girls how to cook, sew, and keep house. Children then
receive parental approval when they conform to gender expectations and adopt
culturally accepted and conventional roles. All of these lessons are reinforced by
additional socializing agents, such as the media. In other words, learning gender roles
always occurs within a social context, with the values of the parents and society being
passed along to the children of successive generations.

[Link]

Gender and development

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (August 2015)
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The pre-World War II period saw flourishing movements of various forms of
feminism; however, the nexus between (economic) development and women was
not clearly articulated until the second half of the 20th century. Women first came
into focus in development as objects of welfare policies, including those focused on
birth control, nutrition, and pregnancy.[1] "In 1962 the UN General Assembly asked
the Commission on the Status of Women to prepare a report on the role of women in
development. Ester Boserup's path breaking study on Women's Role in Economic
Development was published in 1970. [2] These events marked monumental

moments in developing the liberal paradigm of women in development, and the

welfarist approach still remains dominant in development practice today. This article
reviews the dominant liberal approaches, including women in development (WID),
women and development (WAD), gender and development (GAD) and neoliberal
frameworks (Singh, 2007). There is significant overlap among these approaches (for
example, WID can be seen as an early version of the neoliberal framework).
Women in development (WID)[edit]
Theoretical approach

The term women in development was originally coined by a Washington-based

network of female development professionals in the early 1970s[3] who sought to
question trickle down existing theories of development by contesting that economic
development had identical impacts on men and women.[4] The Women in
Development movement (WID) gained momentum in the 1970s, driven by the
resurgence of women's movements in developed countries, and particularly through
liberal feminists striving for equal rights and labour opportunities in the United
States.[5] Liberal feminism, postulating that women's disadvantages in society may
be eliminated by breaking down customary expectations of women by offering
better education to women and introducing equal opportunity programmes,[6] had
a notable influence on the formulation of the WID approaches.[5]

The focus of the 1970s feminist movements and their repeated calls for
employment opportunities in the development agenda meant that particular
attention was given to the productive labour of women, leaving aside reproductive
concerns and social welfare.[5] This approach was pushed forward by WID
advocates, reacting to the general policy environment maintained by early colonial
authorities and post-war development authorities, wherein inadequate reference to
the work undertook by women as producers was made, as they were almost solely
identified as their roles as wives and mothers.[5] The WID's opposition to this
welfare approach was in part motivated by the work of Danish economist Ester
Boserup in the early 1970s, who challenged the assumptions of the said approach
and highlighted the role women by women in the agricultural production and
economy.[7]

A dominant strand of thinking within WID sought to link womens issues with
development, highlighting how such issues acted as impediments to economic
growth; this relevance approach stemmed from the experience of WID advocates
which illustrated that it was more effective if demands of equity and social justice
for women were strategically linked to mainstream development concerns, in an
attempt to have WID policy goals taken up by development agencies.[8] The
Women in Development approach was the first contemporary movement to
specifically integrate women in the broader development agenda and acted as the

precursor to later movements such as the Women and Development (WAD), and
ultimately, the Gender and Development approach, departing from some of the
criticized aspects imputed to the WID.

Criticism

The WID movement faced a number of criticisms; such an approach had in some
cases the unwanted consequence of depicting women as a unit whose claims are
conditional on its productive value, associating increased female status with the
value of cash income in womens lives.[9] Furthermore, the WID, although it
advocated for greater gender equality, did not tackle the unequal gender relations
and roles at the basis of women's exclusion and gender subordination rather than
addressing the stereotyped expectations entertained by men.[10] Moreover, the
underlying assumption behind the call for the integration of the Third World women
with their national economy was that women were not already participating in
development, thus downplaying women's roles in household production and
informal economic and political activities.[11] The WID was also criticized for its
views on the fact that women's status will improve by moving into productive
employment, implying that the move to the modern sector need to be made
from the traditional sector to achieve self-advancement, further implying that
traditional work roles often occupied by women in the developing world were
inhibiting to self-development.[12]

Women and development (WAD)

Women and development (WAD) is a theoretical and practical approach to

development. It was introduced into gender studies scholarship in the second half of
the 1970s, following its origins, which can be traced to the First World Conference
on Women in Mexico City in 1975,[13] organized by the UN. It is a departure from
the previously predominant theory, WID (Women in Development) and is often
mistaken for WID, but has many distinct characteristics.

Theoretical approach

WAD arose out of a shift in thinking about womens role in development, and
concerns about the explanatory limitations of modernization theory.[14] While
previous thinking held that development was a vehicle to advance women, new
ideas suggested that development was only made possible by the involvement of
women, and rather than being simply passive recipients of development aid, they
should be actively involved in development projects.[13] WAD took this thinking a

step further and suggested that women have always been an integral part of
development, and did not suddenly appear in the 1970s as a result of exogenous
development efforts.[14] The WAD approach suggests that there be women-only
development projects that were theorized to remove women from the patriarchal
hegemony that would exist if women participated in development alongside men in
a patriarchal culture, though this concept has been heavily debated by theorists in
the field.[15] In this sense, WAD is differentiated from WID by way of the theoretical
framework upon which it was built. Rather than focus specifically on womens
relationship to development, WAD focuses on the relationship between patriarchy
and capitalism. This theory seeks to understand womens issues from the
perspectives of neo-Marxism and dependency theory, though much of the
theorizing about WAD remains undocumented due to the persistent and pressing
nature of development work in which many WAD theorists engage.[15]

Practical approach

The WAD paradigm stresses the relationship between women, and the work that
they perform in their societies as economic agents in both the public and domestic
spheres. It also emphasizes the distinctive nature of the roles women play in the
maintenance and development of their societies, with the understanding that purely
the integration of women into development efforts would serve to reinforce the
existing structures of inequality present in societies overrun by patriarchal interests.
In general, WAD is thought to offer a more critical conceptualization of womens
position that does WID.[14]

The WAD approach emphasizes the distinctive nature of womens knowledge, work,
goals, and responsibilities, as well as advocating for the recognition of their
distinctiveness. This fact, combined with a recognized tendency for development
agencies to be dominated by patriarchal interests, is at the root of the women-only
initiatives introduced by WAD subscribers.[15]

Criticism

Some of the common critiques of the WAD approach include concerns that the
women-only development projects would struggle, or ultimately fail, due to their
scale, and the marginalized status of these women. Furthermore, the WAD
perspective suffers from a tendency to view women as a class, and pay little
attention to the differences among women (such as feminist concept of
intersectionality), including race and ethnicity, and prescribe development
endeavors that may only serve to address the needs of a particular group. While an
improvement on WID, WAD fails to fully consider the relationships between

patriarchy, modes of production, and the marginalization of women. It also

presumes that the position of women around the world will improve when
international conditions become more equitable. Additionally, WAD has been
criticized for its singular preoccupation with the productive side of womens work,
while it ignores the reproductive aspect of womens work and lives. Value is placed
on income-generating activities, and none is ascribed to social and cultural
reproduction.[14]

Gender and development (GAD)[edit]

Theoretical approach

The Gender and Development (GAD) approach focuses on the socially

constructed[16] differences between men and women and the need to challenge
existing gender roles and relations.[17] This approach was majorly influenced by the
writings of academic scholars such as Oakley (1972) and Rubin (1975), who
emphasize the social relationship between men and women.[18] These
relationships, they argue, have systematically subordinated women.[19] GAD
departs from WID, which discussed women's subordination and lack of inclusion in
discussions of international development without examining broader systems of
gender relations.[20] Influenced by this work, by the late 1970s, some practitioners
working in the development field questioned focusing on women in isolation.[21]
GAD challenged the WID focus on women as an important target group[22] and
untapped resources for development.[23] GAD marked a shift in thinking about the
need to understand how women and men are socially constructed and how those
constructions are powerfully reinforced by the social activities that both define and
are defined by them.[21] GAD focuses primarily on the gendered division of labor
and gender as a relation of power embedded in institutions.[17] Consequently, two
major frameworks Gender roles and social relations analysis are used in this
approach.[24] 'Gender roles' focuses on the social construction of identities within
the household; it also reveals the expectations from maleness and femaleness[21]
in their relative access to resources. 'Social relations analysis' exposes the social
dimensions of hierarchical power relations embedded in social institutions, as well
as its determining influence on the relative position of men and women in
society.[21] This relative positioning tends to discriminate against
women.<ref">Reeves, Hazel (2000). Gender and Development: Concepts and
Definitions. Brighton. p. 18. ISBN 1 85864 381 3.</ref>

Unlike WID, the GAD approach is not concerned specifically with women, but with
the way in which a society assigns roles, responsibilities and expectations to both
women and men. GAD applies gender analysis to uncover the ways in which men
and women work together, presenting results in neutral terms of economics and
efficiency.[25]In an attempt to create gender equality, (denoting women having

same opportunities as men, including ability to participate in the public sphere;[26]

GAD policies aims to redefine traditional gender role expectations. Women are
expected to fulfill household management tasks, home based production as well as
bearing and raising children and caring for family members. The role of a wife is
largely interpreted as 'the responsibilities of motherhood'[27] Men however, are
expected to be breadwinners whom are associated with paid work, and market
production.[17] In the labor market, women tend to earn less than men. For
instance, 'a study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found massive pay
inequities in some United Kingdoms top finance companies, women received
around 80 percent less performance-related pay than their male colleagues.'[28] In
response to pervasive gender inequalities, Beijing Platform for Action established
gender mainstreaming in 1995 as a strategy across all policy areas at all levels of
governance for achieving gender equality.

Caroline Moser developed the Moser Gender Planning Framework for GAD-oriented
development planning in the 1980s while working at the Development Planning Unit
of the University of London. Working with Caren Levy, she expanded it into a
methodology for gender policy and planning.[29] The Moser framework follows the
Gender and Development approach in emphasizing the importance of gender
relations. As with the WID-based Harvard Analytical Framework, it includes a
collection of quantitative empirical facts. Going further, it investigates the reasons
and processes that lead to conventions of access and control. The Moser Framework
includes gender roles identification, gender needs assessment, disaggregating
control of resources and decision making within the household, planning for
balancing work and household responsibilities, distinguishing between different
aims in interventions and involving women and gender-aware organizations in
planning.[30]

Criticisms

GAD has been criticized for emphasizing the social differences between men and
women while neglecting the bonds between them and also the potential for
changes in roles. Another criticism is that GAD does not dig deeply enough into
social relations and so may not explain how these relations can undermine
programs directed at women. It also does not uncover the types of trade-offs that
women are prepared to make for the sake of achieving their ideals of marriage or
motherhood.[25] Another criticism is that the GAD perspective is theoretically
distinct from WID, but in practice, a program seem to have the element of the two.
Whilst many development agencies are now committed to a gender approach, in
practice, the primary institutional perspective remain focused on a WID approach.
[31] There is a slippage in reality where gender mainstreaming is often based in a
single normative perspective as synonymous to women.[32] Development agencies
still advance gender transformation to mean economic betterment for women.[31]

Neoliberal approaches[edit]
Gender and neoliberal development institutions[edit]
Among development institutions, gender issues have increasingly become part of
economic development agendas, as the examples of the World Bank shows.
Awareness by international organizations of the need to address gender issues
evolved over the past decades. The World Bank, for example, started focusing on
gender in 1977 with the appointment of a first Women in Development Adviser.[33]
In 1984 the bank mandated that its programs consider women's issues. In 1994 the
bank issued a policy paper on Gender and Development, reflecting current thinking
on the subject. This policy aims to address policy and institutional constraints that
maintain disparities between the genders and thus limit the effectiveness of
development programs.[34]Thirty years after the appointment of a first Women in
Development Adviser, a so-called Gender Action Plan was launched to underline the
importance of the topic within development strategies and to introduce the new
Smart Economics strategy. In 2012, the World Development Report was the first
report of the series examining Gender Equality and Development.[33]

Women have been identified by some development institutions as a key to

successful development, for example through financial inclusion. One example is
the Womens Development Business (WDB) in South Africa, a Grameen Bank
microfinance replicator. According to WDB, the goal is to ensure [] that rural
women are given the tools to free themselves from the chains of poverty []
through allocation of financial resources directly to women including enterprise
development programs.[35] The idea is to use microfinance as a market-oriented
tool to ensure access to financial services for disadvantaged and low-income people
and therefore fostering economic development through financial inclusion.

As a reaction, a current topic in the feminist literature on economic development is

the gendering of microfinance, as women have increasingly become the target
borrowers for rural microcredit lending. This, in turn, creates the assumption of a
rational economic woman which can exacerbate existing social hierarchies[36]).
Therefore, the critique is that the assumption of economic development through
microfinance does not take into account all possible outcomes, especially the ones
affecting women.

The impact of programs of the Bretton Woods Institutions and other similar
organizations on gender are being monitored by Gender Action, a watchdog group
founded in 2002 by Eliane Zuckerman who is a former World Bank economist.

Gender, financial crises, and neoliberal economic policy[edit]

The global financial crisis and the following politics of austerity have opened up a
wide range of gender and feminist debates on neoliberalism and the impact of the
crisis on women. One view is that the crisis has affected women disproportionately
and that there is a need for alternative economic structures in which investment in
social reproduction needs to be given more weight.[37] The International Labour
Organization (ILO) assessed the impact of the global financial crisis on workers and
concluded that while the crisis initially affected industries that were dominated by
male workers (such as finance, construction and manufacturing) it then spread over
to sectors in which female workers are predominantly active. Examples for these
sectors are the service sector or wholesale retail trade.[38]

There are different views among feminists on whether neoliberal economic policies
have more positive or negative impacts on women. In the post-war era, feminist
scholars such as Elizabeth Wilson[39] criticized state capitalism and the welfare
state as a tool to oppress women. Therefore, neoliberal economic policies featuring
privatization and deregulation, hence a reduction of the influence of the state and
more individual freedom was argued to improve conditions for women. This antiwelfare state thinking arguably led to feminist support for neoliberal ideas
embarking on a macroeconomic policy level deregulation and a reduced role of the
state.

Therefore, some scholars in the field argue that feminism, especially during its
second wave, has contributed key ideas to Neoliberalism that, according to these
authors, creates new forms of inequality and exploitation.[40]

As a reaction to the phenomenon that some forms of feminism are increasingly

interwoven with capitalism, many suggestions on how to name these movements
have emerged in the feminist literature. Examples are free market feminism [41]
or even faux-feminism.[42]

Smart economics[edit]
Theoretical approaches Advocated chiefly by the World Bank, smart economics is an
approach to define gender equality as an integral part of economic development
and it aims to spur development through investing more efficiently in women and
girls. It stresses that the gap between men and women in human capital, economic
opportunities, and voice/agency is a chief obstacle in achieving more efficient
development. As an approach, it is a direct descendant of the efficiency approach
taken by WID which rationalizes investing in women and girls for more effective
development outcomes.[43][44] As articulated in the section of WID, the efficiency
approach to women in development was chiefly articulated by Caroline Moser in the

late 1980s.[45] Continuing the stream of WID, smart economics key unit of analysis
is women as individual and it particularly focuses on measures that promote to
narrow down the gender gap. Its approach identifies women are relatively
underinvested source of development and it defines gender equality an opportunity
of higher return investment. Gender equality itself is here depicted as smart
economics, in that it enables women to contribute their utmost skills and energies
to the project of world economic development.[43] In this term, smart economics
champions neoliberal perspective in seeing business as a vital vehicle for change
and it takes a stance of liberal feminism.

The thinking behind smart economics dates back, at least, to the lost decade of the
Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) in the 1980s.[43] In 1995, World Bank issued
its flagship publication on gender matters of the year Enhancing Womens
Participation in Economic Development (World Bank 1995). This report marked a
critical foundation to the naissance of Smart Economics; in a chapter entitled The
Pay-offs to Investing in Women, the Bank proclaimed that investing in women
speeds economic development by raising productivity and promoting the more
efficient use of resources; it produces significant social returns, improving child
survival and reducing fertility, and it has considerable intergenerational pay-offs.
[46] The Bank also emphasized its associated social benefits generated by investing
in women. For example, the Bank turned to researches of Whitehead that evidenced
a greater female-control of household income is associated with better outcomes for
childrens welfare [47] and Jeffery and Jeffery who analyzed the positive correlation
between female education and lower fertility rates.[48] In the 2000s, the approach
of smart economics came to be further crystallized through various frameworks and
initiatives. A first step was World Banks Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2007-/2010,
followed by the Three Year Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming 2010-13. The
2010-13 framework responded to criticisms for its precursor and incorporated some
shifts in thematic priorities.[49] Lastly but not least, the decisive turning point was
2012 marked by its publication of World Development Report 2012: Gender
Equality and Development.[50] This Banks first comprehensive focus on the
gender issues was welcomed by various scholars and practitioners, as an indicator
of its seriousness. For example, Shahra Razavi appraised the report as a welcome
opportunity for widening the intellectual space.[51]

Other international organizations, particular UN families, have so far endorsed the

approach of smart economics. Examining the relationship between child well-being
and gender equality, for example, UNICEF also referred to the Double Dividend of
Gender Equality.[52] Its explicit link to a wider framework of the Millennium
Development Goals (where the Goal 3 is Promoting Gender Equality and Womens
Empowerment) claimed a wider legitimacy beyond economic efficiency. In 2007, the
Bank proclaimed that The business case for investing in MDG 3 is strong; it is
nothing more than smart economics.[53] In addition, Development organisations
and governments have been joined in this focus on the business case for gender

equality and the empowerment of women, by businesses and enterprises which are
interested in contributing to social good.[43] A good example is Girl Effect
initiative taken by Nike Foundation.[54] Its claim for economic imperative and a
broader socio-economic impact also met a strategic need of NGOs and community
organizations that seeks justification for their program funding.[43] Thus, some
NGOs, for example Plan International, captured this trend to further their program.
The then-president of the World Bank Robert B. Zoellick was quoted by Plan
International in stating Investing in adolescent girls is precisely the catalyst poor
countries need to break intergenerational poverty and to create a better distribution
of income. Investing in them is not only fair, it is a smart economic move.[55] The
global financial meltdown and austerity measures taken by major donor counties
further supported this approach, since international financial institutions (IFIs) s and
international NGOs received a greater pressure from donors and from global public
to design and implement maximally cost-effective programs.

Criticisms From the mid-2000s, the approach of smart economics and its chief
proponent World Bank met a wide range of criticisms and denouncements. These
discontents can be broadly categorized into three major claims; Subordination of
Intrinsic Value; Ignorance for the need of systemic transformation; Feminisation of
responsibility; Overemphasized efficiency; and Opportunistic [Link] is not
exhaustive list of criticisms, but the list aims to highlight different emphasis among
existing criticisms.

Smart economics subordination of women under the justification of development

invited fierce criticisms. Chant expresses her grave concern that Smart economics
is concerned with building womens capacities in the interests of development
rather than promoting womens rights for their own sake.[43] She disagrees that
investment in women should be promoted by its instrumental utility: it is
imperative to ask whether the goal of female investment is primarily to promote
gender equality and womens empowerment, or to facilitate development on the
cheap, and/or to promote further economic liberalization.[43][56] Although smart
economics outlines that gender equality has intrinsic value (realizing gender quality
is an end itself) and instrumental value (realizing gender equality is a means to a
more efficient development),[50] many points out that the Bank pays almost
exclusive attentions to the latter in defining its framework and strategy. Zuckerman
also echoed this point by stating business case [which] ignores the moral
imperative of empowering women to achieve womens human rights and full equal
rights with men.[56] In short, Chant casts a doubt that if it is not possible to
promote rights through utilitarianism. [43]

A wide range of scholars and practitioners has criticized that smart economics
rather endorse the current status-quo of gender inequality and keep silence for the
demand of institutional reform. Its approach [d]oes not involves public action to

transform the laws, policies, and practices which constrain personal and group
agency.[43] Naila Kabeer also posits that attention to collective action to enable
women to challenge structural discrimination has been downplayed.[57] Simply,
smart economics assumes that women are entirely capable of increasingly
contributing for economic growth amid the ongoing structural barriers to realize
their capabilities.

Sylvia Chant (2008) discredited its approach as feminisation of responsibility and/or

obligation where the smart economics intends to spur growth simply by demanding
more from women in terms of time, labour, energy, and other resources.[43] She
also agrees that Smart economics seeks to use women and girls to fix the
world.[43] She further goes by clarifying that It is less welcome to women who are
already contributing vast amounts to both production and unpaid reproduction to be
romanticised and depicted as the salvation of the world.[43]

Chant is concerned that An efficiency-driven focus on young women and girls as

smart economics leaves this critical part of the global population out.[43] Smart
economics assumes that all women are at their productive stage and fallaciously
neglects lives of the elderly women, or women with handicaps. Thus she calls for
recognition of equal rights of all women and girls -regardless of age, or the extent
of nature of their economic contribution.[43] Also, its approach does not talk about
cooperation and collaboration between males and females thus leaving men and
boys completely out of picture.

Chant emphasize that The smart economics approach represents, at best,

pragmatism in a time of economic restructuring and austerity.[43] Smart
economics can have a wider acceptance and legitimacy because now is the time
when efficiency is most demanded, not because its utilitarianism has universal
appeal. She further warns that feminists should be very cautious about supporting,
and working in coalition with, individuals and institutions who approach gender
equality through the lens of smart economics. This may have attractions in strategic
terms, enabling us to access resources for work focusing on supporting the
individual agency of women and girls, but risks aggravating many of the complex
problems that gender and development seeks to transform.[43]

Alternative Approaches[edit]
Other approaches with different paradigms have also played a historically important
role in advancing theories and practices in gender and development.

Marxism and Neo-Marxism[edit]

The structuralist debate was first triggered by Marxist and socialist feminists.
Marxism, particularly through alternative models of state socialist development
practiced in China and Cuba, challenged the dominant liberal approach over time.
Neo-Marxist proponents focused on the role of the post-colonial state in
development in general and also on localized class struggles.[58] Marxist feminists
advanced these criticisms towards liberal approaches and made significant
contribution to the contemporary debate.[59]

Dependency theory[edit]
Dependency theorists opposed that liberal development models, including the
attempt to incorporate women into the existing global capitalism, was in fact
nothing more than the "development of underdevelopment."[60] This view led them
to propose that delinking from the structural oppression of global capitalism is the
only way to achieve balanced human development. In the 1980s, there also
emerged "a sustained questioning by post-structuralist critics of the development
paradigm as a narrative of progress and as an achievable enterprise."[61]

Basic Needs Approach, Capability Approach, and Ecofeminism[edit]

Within the liberal paradigm of women and development, various criticism have
emerged. The Basic Needs (BN) approach began to pose questions to the focus on
growth and income as indicators of development. It was heavily influenced by Sen
and Nussabaum's capability approach, which was more gender sensitive than BN
and focused on expanding human freedom.[62][63] The BN particularly proposed a
participatory approach to development and challenged the dominant discourse of
trickle down effects.[64] These approaches focused on the human freedom led to
development of other important concepts such as human development and human
security. From a perspective of sustainable development, ecofeminists articulated
the direct link between colonialism and environmental degradation, which resulted
in degradation of women's lives themselves.[65]

[Link]

Patterns of Gender Development

Carol Lynn Martin1 and Diane N. Ruble2
Author information Copyright and License information
The publisher's final edited version of this article is available at Annu Rev Psychol
See other articles in PMC that cite the published article.

Abstract
Go to:

INTRODUCTION
Understanding the changes that correspond with the passage of time is a hallmark of
developmental studies, including the study of gender development. Gender developmental
scientists are concerned with age-related changes in gender typing, and more broadly, with many
issues about the emergence and patterning of gendered behaviors and thinking. Description of
these changes is vitally important as it informs theoretical approaches to gender development.
Using a broad lens on age-related changes provides important information describing how
development occurs, but shorter time frames are also useful for identifying processes that may
underlie developmental patterns. Gender developmental scientists are beginning to conceptualize
temporal change and measurement of relevant variables over time in more nuanced ways and
with new methods and analytic strategies.
Our goal in this article is not to provide an extensive review of changes in gender over
childhood, but instead to focus on the perspective of developmental patterning. In selecting
issues to review, we attempted to find a set of issues that would provide insights into processes
underlying gender development while also being representative of contemporary issues and

future directions in the field. First, to highlight developmentalists' interest in average or

normative changes across age, we review the timeline of gender development for the emergence
of gender understanding and stereotyping and how discrimination and prejudice develop in
childhood. Second, we examine continuities within individuals over time as an important
theoretical complement to the first focus on mean-level, normative patterns over time.
Longitudinal studies are reviewed to examine whether individual differences are stable over time
in two areas of gender typing: sex segregation and activities and interests. Finally, we discuss
how dynamic systems theory may be applied in gender development and describe its potential
for understanding patterns over different time frames.

Go to:

HOW EARLY DO CHILDREN ACQUIRE GENDER CONCEPTS AND

EXHIBIT PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION?
The first few years of life and into adolescence have been the focus of much theorizing and
empirical research on gender development. Major questions have arisen about the timeline of
gender development, and resolving these issues is central to understanding processes underlying
gender development. In this section, we discuss two key aspects of gender development. First,
the earliest emergence of gender understanding and behaviors provides insights about the origins
of sex differences and the prominence of gender as a social category, and so it is not surprising
that these topics have been highlighted in contemporary research on gender development.
Second, because of the far-ranging implications on human social interactions, we review
research evidence concerning the emergence of gender prejudice and discrimination.
Do Infants Understand and Use Gender?
A major issue that has driven research is whether children's basic understanding of gender
identity motivates and organizes the development of gender-typed behaviors, an idea proposed
by self-socialization theories of gender development. Self-socialization perspectives posit that
children actively seek information about what gender means and how it applies to them and that
an understanding of gender categories motivates behavior such that, in essence, they socialize
themselves (see Martin et al. 2002). In contrast, others (Bussey & Bandura 1999, Campbell et al.
2002) have argued that gender understanding must not play an important role in the emergence
of gendered behaviors because some gender-typed behaviors emerge prior to age two,
presumably earlier than children's understanding or identification with gender. The evidence
needed to resolve this controversy concerns whether behavior becomes increasingly gender

typed with the onset of basic gender understanding, and recent findings have extended our
knowledge of these fundamental issues. Much has been written about these topics and about the
surrounding controversies (Bandura & Bussey 2004;Martin et al. 2002, 2004); here, we provide
an overview and update of the evidence.
When do children begin to recognize that there are two types of peoplemales and females
and when are they able to link this information to other qualities to form basic stereotypes? A
related question is, when do children recognize their own sex? Infants as young as three to four
months of age distinguish between categories of female and male faces, as demonstrated in
habituation and preferential looking paradigms (Quinn et al. 2002). By about six months, infants
can discriminate faces and voices by sex, habituate to faces of both sexes, and make intermodal
associations between faces and voices (e.g., Fagan & Singer 1979, Miller 1983, Younger &
Fearing 1999). By 10 months, infants are able to form stereotypic associations between faces of
women and men and gender-typed objects (e.g., a scarf, a hammer), suggesting that they have the
capacity to form primitive stereotypes (Levy & Haaf 1994). Infants' early associative networks
about the sexes may not carry the same conceptual or affective associations that characterize
those of older children or adults, although the nature of these associations has yet to be examined
in any depth (see Martin et al. 2002).
Because of the difficulties associated with testing infants, it has been challenging to determine
when children first recognize their own or others' sex. Early studies suggested that labeling and
understanding of gender may not emerge until about 30 months of age, but more recent studies
have moved the age of understanding gender identity and labeling downward. In a study using a
preferential looking paradigm, about 50% of 18-month-old girls showed knowledge of gender
labels (lady, man), but boys did not, and 50% of 18- and 24-month-old boys and girls
showed above-chance understanding of the label boy (Poulin-Dubois et al. 1998). In another
non-verbal testing situation, 24- and 30-month old children knew the gender groups to which
they and others belonged (Stennes et al. 2005). Similarly, most 24- and 28-month-old children
select the correct picture in response to gender labels provided by an experimenter (Campbell et
al. 2002, Levy 1999).
A recent study examined the naturally occurring instances of gender labels (e.g., girl, boy,
woman, man, lady, guy) as indicators of knowledge of gender categories and assessed whether
the onset of use of these terms related to children's observed free play with toys (Zosuls et al.
2009). Information about gender labels was obtained from examining biweekly parent diaries of
children's speech from 10 months of age onward. Zosuls and colleagues (2009) also analyzed
videotapes of the children at 17 months and 21 months playing with a set of toys varying from
high to neutral in gender typing. The results showed that 25% of children used gender labels by
17 months and 68% by 21 months. On average, girls produced labels at 18 months, one month
earlier than did boys. These labeling results were used to predict changes in gender-typed
behavior with the two most strongly gender-typed toys (trucks and dolls). Children who knew
and used gender labels were more likely than other children to show increases in gender-typed
play with toys.

Taken together, these studies suggest that most children develop the ability to label gender
groups and to use gender labels in their speech between 18 and 24 months. As proposed by selfsocialization theorists, the results from the Zosuls et al. study (2009) suggest that developing this
ability has consequences: Knowing basic gender information was related to increased play with
strongly stereotyped toys. These findings are consistent with research suggesting that children
develop awareness of their own self at roughly 18 months and then begin to actively engage in
information seeking about what things mean and how they should behave (Baldwin & Moses
1996).
When Do Children Develop Stereotypes?
Developmental researchers have identified that rudimentary stereotypes develop by about two
years of age (Kuhn et al. 1978), and many children develop basic stereotypes by age three
(Signorella et al. 1993). Children first show an understanding of sex differences associated with
adult possessions (e.g., shirt and tie), physical appearance, roles, toys, and activities, and
recognize some abstract associations with gender (e.g., hardness as male; softness as female)
(Leinbach et al. 1997, Weinraub et al. 1984). Children develop stereotypes about physical
aggression at an early age, and by age 41, children believe that girls show more relational
aggression than boys (Giles & Heyman 2005). Interestingly, even when researchers examine
children's spontaneous associations about boys and girls, a consistent pattern is found from
preschool through fourth/fifth grade: girls are seen as nice, wearing dresses, and liking dolls, and
boys are seen as having short hair, playing active games, and being rough (Miller et al. 2009).
As children grow older, the range of stereotypes about sports, occupations, school tasks, and
adult roles expands, and the nature of the associations becomes more sophisticated (e.g., Sinno &
Killen 2009). Specifically, early in childhood, children make vertical associations between the
category label (girls, boys) and qualities (e.g., boys like trucks). They appear slower to
make horizontal inferences (e.g., recognizing that trucks and airplanes are associated with being
masculine), which tend to appear around age eight. For instance, when told about an
unfamiliar sex-unspecified child who likes trucks, older children but not younger ones predict
that the child also likes playing with airplanes (Martin et al. 1990). Concreteness of gendered
items influences the ability of younger children to make these property-to-property inferences
(Bauer et al. 1998). In contrast, adults often rely on individuating information rather than the
person's sex to make similar types of judgments (Deaux & Lewis 1984). The difficulty that
children have with these judgments suggests that they may not understand within-sex individual
differences.
Meta-analytic studies find that stereotypes become more flexible with age (Signorella et al.
1993). A longitudinal study of children from 5 to 10 years of age showed a peak in the rigidity of
stereotypes at either 5 or 6 years of age and then an increase in flexibility two years later. Neither
the timing nor the level of peak rigidity affected the developmental trajectory, suggesting that
children generally follow the same normative path across development despite variations in
when rigidity starts and how extreme it becomes (Trautner et al. 2005).

Many questions remain to be answered about the developmental progression in learning the
content of stereotypes and in exploring individual differences in patterns of development. For
instance, when do children first begin to assume that there are similarities within one sex and
dissimilarities between the sexes? Theorists are interested in examining the roles that personal
interests and idiosyncratic knowledge play in the development or hindrance in stereotype
formation (Liben & Bigler 2002, Martin & Ruble 2004). Furthermore, how children apply
stereotypes once they have learned them is an issue of continuing interest in the field.
When Do Children Exhibit Prejudice and Discrimination?
Recent conceptual analyses suggest a range of factors that likely contribute to the development
of stereotypes and prejudice, such as highly salient categorizing dimensions (e.g., sex) (Martin &
Ruble 2004) and labeling of these dimensions by others (Bigler et al. 1997). Because recent
reviews of Developmental Intergroup Theory have covered the influence of these factors and
discussed studies of children's responses to novel stereotyping situations (Arthur et al.
2008, Bigler & Liben 2007), the focus here is on the age-related changes in cognitive and
behavioral expressions of gender prejudice and discrimination, not with their origins.
Attitudes about the two sexes

How do children's evaluations of the two sexes change with age? This question involves a
number of different kinds of attitudes and beliefs; we focus on two: (a) ingroup/outgroup biases,
and (b) perceptions of status differences and discrimination. There has been relatively little
research on these topics, but interest has increased recently.
Ingroup/outgroup biases

Children's growing awareness of membership in a social group (i.e., male or female) becomes an
evaluative process through self-identification and thus affects how positively children regard the
ingroup relative to the outgroup (Ruble et al. 2004). Some research suggests that as early as
preschool, children report feeling more positively about their own sex (Yee & Brown 1994), and
differential liking is also seen among older children (e.g., Heyman 2001, Verkuyten & Thijs
2001). Studies are mixed regarding age trends, depending on the measure. Those examining
negative versus positive trait ratings suggest that intergroup biases decline in elementary school
(e.g., Egan & Perry 2001, Powlishta et al. 1994), consistent with increasing stereotype flexibility
described above; but studies tapping more affective reactions (e.g., liking the ingroup better) do
not show this decline (e.g., Yee & Brown 1994), at least not until early adolescence (Verkuyten
& Thijs 2001).
We do not yet know whether and when ingroup favoritism is associated with outgroup
derogation. That is, do children actually dislike or have hostile attitudes toward the other sex, or
is it simply that children like their own sex better? Because many studies use difference scores,
ingroup positivity and outgroup negativity are often confounded (Brewer 2001, Cameron et al.

2001). Moreover, Kowalski (2007) reports that studies of young children's interactions do
involve evaluative comments between boys and girls but rarely involve animosity, suggesting
that some researchers may have misinterpreted children's positive ingroup feelings in structured
interviews as overt rejection of the other group. Recent research suggests that when they are
decoupled, ingroup positivity effects are stronger than outgroup negativity among elementary
school children (Susskind & Hodges 2007). It is also not clear whether young girls' willingness
to judge boys as bad, for example, indicates outright hostility (Rudman & Glick 2008) or if,
instead, such judgments reflect stereotypes about boys getting into trouble (e.g., Heyman 2001).
On the other hand, studies showing that the other sex is disliked (e.g., Yee & Brown 1994) are
consistent with a conclusion of negative outgroup evaluation. An important issue for future
research concerns this distinction between cognitive and affective aspects of intergroup bias and
its connection to the development of gender prejudice (Halim & Ruble 2009).
A distinction in the adult literature between hostile and benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske 2001)
represents a potentially very useful conceptualization for future developmental research. The
idea is that, unlike most forms of prejudice toward outgroups, negative intergroup attitudes
between males and females are likely to be complicated by intimate interdependence and thus are
likely to be ambivalent, involving benevolent as well as hostile aspects. For example, women
may be viewed as competitors seeking to gain power over men, but they may also be viewed as
angelic (put on a pedestal) and vulnerable, in need of protection. Men may be resented for their
dominance over women but also admired as providers and heroes. Applying this distinction to
the developmental course of intergroup attitudes, Rudman & Glick (2008) argued that
ambivalence does not characterize gender prejudice in young children, but rather that it moves
from a simple form of childhood hostility toward competing groups to ambivalent sexism.
This is an interesting proposal with important implications, but questions remain. First, outgroup
negativity in young children can be interpreted differently, as suggested above; their perceptions
may be simple and competitive, but not extreme enough to be characterized as hostile. Perhaps,
instead, children's need to master important categorical distinctions coupled with relatively
limited cognitive skills make it threatening when peers cross gender boundaries (Kowalski
2007). Second, young children's attitudes may involve some complexity and ambivalence, but of
a different sort than for adults. For example, young children may dislike members of the other
sex because they are boring (about girls) or rough (about boys) while still holding positive views
about other characteristics of other-sex peers, such as girls are nice and boys play exciting
games. Moreover, children begin to anticipate adult roles at an early age, and benevolent feelings
could arise from a princess anticipating her prince or the expectation by two young oppositesex friends that they will one day be husband and wife. Further examination of different
interpretations of preschoolers' ingroup bias is important because knowing what it represents is
critical to knowing when to intervene to minimize sexism.

Awareness of status differences and discrimination

When do children become aware of the status difference applied to males and masculine
activities relative to females and feminine activities in most cultures? Although studies of gender
stereotypes in young children show that they attribute greater power to males and helplessness to
females (Ruble et al. 2006), only a few studies have examined perceptions of inequality directly.
First, research has found awareness of status differences in occupations typically held by men
and women (Liben et al. 2001, Teig & Susskind 2008). Children as young as 6 years understood
that jobs more likely to be held by men (e.g., business executive) are higher in status than
female-typical jobs, but only older children (11-year-olds) associated fictitious male jobs as
being higher in status (Liben et al. 2001). A study of perceptions of a high-status jobthe U.S.
presidencyfound that 87% of children aged 510 years knew that only men had been
presidents, though knowledge increased significantly with age (Bigler et al. 2008).
Second, research has examined the development of children's general perceptions of gender
inequalities (Neff et al. 2007). The findings showed a notable increase between 7 and 15 years of
age in beliefs that males are granted more power and respect than females.
Finally, a few recent studies examined children's perceptions of gender discrimination. First, in
the study of the presidency, only approximately 30% of the 5- to 10-year-old children attributed
the lack of women presidents to discrimination, although this percentage increased with age.
Instead, the most frequent explanation was ingroup bias: that men would not vote for women.
These findings suggest that even young children are aware of how ingroup biases shape behavior
and that they perceive such reasons as more important than institutional discrimination in
determining the selection of the president (Bigler et al. 2008). In a second study, children in two
age groups (57 and 810 years) responded to a set of hypothetical stories about teachers
deciding whether a boy or a girl did better on an activity (Brown & Bigler 2005). The findings
showed that the younger children were somewhat aware of gender discrimination, but such
perceptions were higher in the older group. Children perceived discrimination, however, only
when explicitly told that the teacher may be biased, not when the context was ambiguous.
Taken together, these studies suggest that children's awareness of the differential status of the
sexes and gender discrimination are relatively late-developing phenomena. Young children show
limited awareness, but only when contextual cues (e.g., explicit mention of biases) or social
experiences (knowledge of status of real occupations) make inequities obvious. More subtle
awareness of inequities may not emerge until later in elementary school. The slow development
of this more public evaluation, such as recognizing status and power differences and
institutional discrimination, is in stark contrast to the early developing personal regard shown
by ingroup biases, suggesting different developmental underpinnings of the two types.

Gender prejudice and discrimination

In what ways might developmental changes in stereotypic beliefs and intergroup attitudes play
out in actual choices and behavior? What little research there is on gender prejudice development
has primarily focused on two types: (a) negative reactions to peers' violations of gender norms
and (b) preferential treatment.
Reactions to gender norm violations

Because preschoolers have strong beliefs that boys and girls do different things, they would be
expected to respond negatively to gender norm violations. Several early studies found support for
this prediction (Huston 1983). For example, when 3- to 5-year-olds were videotaped while
playing with either a male- or female-typed toy (e.g., soldiers; dollhouse) in the presence of a
same-sex peer, children were punished (e.g., ridiculed) by the peer when playing with cross-sex
toys (Langlois & Downs 1980).
Recent research has supported and expanded these findings. For example, teachers report that
kindergarten children tend to respond in one of three ways to gender norm violations: correction
(give that girl puppet to a girl), ridicule, and identity negation (e.g., Jeff is a girl)
(Kowalski 2007). Interestingly, one recent study found that preschool children are able to
identify children who are more likely to enforce the gender rules and gender-segregated
boundaries (McGuire et al. 2007). Preschoolers were asked, Who in your classroom says you
shouldn't play because you are a boy/girl? The findings showed that children who had greater
exposure to gender enforcer peers were more likely to limit their play to same-sex peers. These
findings suggest that there may be individual differences in overt sexist behavior as early as
preschool, and that the actions of these gender police contribute more broadly to the
maintenance of gender distinctions in the classroom.
Because children show age-related increases in the flexibility of stereotypes and other aspects of
gender category knowledge, such as gender constancy and the ability to make multiple
classifications, their negative reactions to gender norm violations should decline after preschool.
Unfortunately, age trends in older children have received little attention, though examples of
such behavior abound. Based on extensive qualitative ethnographic observations in middleelementary school, Thorne (1993) found that boys who violated norms for masculinity were
teased, shunned, or referred to as girls. For example, one girl excluded a boy from jump rope
because you don't know how to do it, to swing it. You gotta be a girl (p. 45). Other research
documented the various rules that children have about maintaining gender boundaries and
found that children who maintain boundaries are more popular with peers (Sroufe et al. 1993).
Finally, research with children exhibiting extreme gender-nonnormative behaviors suggests that
girls and especially boys are teased and rejected by peers (Zucker & Bradley 1995).
Studies using hypothetical stories also indicate that children make negative judgments of, and
consider unpopular, peers who engage in gender-atypical behavior, especially boys. In contrast to

the implications from the more behavioral studies described above, however, many of these
studies fail to find negative evaluations of gender-atypical behaviors before middle-elementary
school (e.g., Berndt & Heller 1986), and children often show increased negativity with age,
although findings are mixed (Ruble et al. 2006). The findings in the judgment studies may be
influenced by the qualities and salience of the stimuli as well as by children's cognitive abilities
and gender knowledge (Arthur et al. 2008, Lutz & Ruble 1995). For example, one recent study
showed a dramatic decrease in negative judgments between 5 and 7 years of age, which was
mediated by increasing gender knowledgespecifically, gender constancy (Ruble et al. 2007b).
Thus, conclusions about evidence of sexism in young children drawn from judgment studies can
be different from conclusions drawn from studies of actual behaviors. This observation raises
interesting questions for future about what exactly children are reacting to when they
demonstrate seemingly sexist behaviors or attitudes toward peers engaging in atypical behavior.
First, children's liking or popularity judgments in hypothetical situations may reflect egocentric
considerations, such as preferring targets engaged in activities typical of their own sex (e.g., girls
preferring male targets with feminine interests) (Alexander & Hines 1994,Zucker et al. 1995).
Thus, young children's liking for gender nonconforming targets may not reflect their tolerance
for gender nonconformity but instead their personal interest in masculine or feminine activities.
Second, it is not clear if the sexist behaviors found in preschool children (e.g., hitting a boy who
wears fingernail polish) are based on global negative evaluations of such children as being
gender atypical or if they reflect a more limited evaluation of a specific instance of a child
breaking a rule (such as stealing cookies). Children's judgments of gender atypicality are likely
influenced by additional factors such as their perceptions of the targets' dissimilarity to same-sex
others (e.g., Egan & Perry 2001) and/or awareness of within-sex variability. Moreover, it may be
only when children begin to recognize and understand the stability of behavior that individual
atypical behaviors coalesce into a broader and more negative view of the person as being deviant
(Ruble & Dweck 1995). Unfortunately, developmental changes in children's perceptions of
others' gender typicality have received little attention. This is surprising because perceptions of
gender typicality are key to understanding reactions to gender norm violations and what they
mean. Whether preschoolers' negative judgments and reactions reflect sexism and, if so, what
form of sexism are interesting questions for future research.
Preferential treatment

Given that the in-group liking bias occurs at a young age, one might expect that children would
show favoritism toward their own sex. When affiliative behavior is measured, children begin to
show preferential selection of same-sex peers starting at age 3 (La Freniere et al. 1984). Children
also preferentially allocate resources to their own-sex group, beginning in preschool (Yee &
Brown 1994).
Other research has examined ingroup favoritism in terms of children's responses to hypothetical
stories about excluding peers from gender stereotypic activities, such as a ballet or baseball

club (Killen et al. 2008). In these studies, there has been little evidence that children were
more likely to choose same-sex members. Instead, children's exclusion and inclusion decisions
were found to vary across age depending on exactly what they were told about the situation.
When children were asked about a single child who wanted to join the club, most children
responded that exclusion was wrong (e.g., to exclude a boy from a ballet club), even though they
knew the stereotypes. Consistent with findings of increasing flexibility of stereotypes with age,
however, this was true for only about 60% of preschoolers (Theimer et al. 2001) versus 90% of
older children (Killen & Stangor 2001). When children were asked to select between a boy and a
girl of equal competence, age differences in the influence of gender stereotypes on inclusion
decisions appeared to be even stronger. Children in the study of preschoolers selected the
stereotyped choice (e.g., the girl for the ballet class) (Theimer et al. 2001). Older children,
however, preferred the counterstereotypic choice (Killen & Stangor, 2001) and offered
justifications based on equal access (e.g., boys don't get a chance to take ballet). Such fairness
considerations in inclusion decisions coupled with relatively low levels of exclusion are
surprising in that they seem inconsistent with the observations of behavioral exclusion described
above. Perhaps only a few children engage in exclusion (e.g., the gender police), or
hypothetical situations might allow children to think instead of answering impulsively and thus
may not invoke ingroup favoritism as much as more personal, immediate situations might.
In short, it appears that gender prejudice and discrimination begin as early as preschool; this
finding is particularly evident in research examining actual behavior, whether naturalistic or
experimental. That is, preschoolers respond negatively to violations of gender norms and favor
ingroup members in actual choices of play partners (sex segregation) and allocation of resources.
Findings of studies examining responses in hypothetical situations appear to be more mixed,
however. From these studies, it appears that the form and bases of gender prejudice and
discrimination vary across age and context. For example, in young children, prejudice may
reflect simple same-sex liking biases or relatively straightforward applications of gender norms,
whereas at older ages, prejudice may involve differential evaluation of capabilities and past
history and thus be more closely linked to knowledge of status differences and discrimination.
The few studies examining these issues have involved very different paradigms. Thus, findings
that apparently conflict across studies cannot be evaluated without future research.
Go to:

HOW STABLE ARE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN GENDER TYPING?

It seems intuitively obvious that individuals vary greatly in how gender typed they are. Some
girls are extremely girly and refuse to go anywhere without wearing a dress, often pink and
frilly, whereas other girls have no such interest and instead prefer playing ball with the boys.
Some men can handle any kind of tool (except kitchen tools!), whereas others lack such
mechanical facility. It is commonly assumed that attributes associated with being a typical male
or female are seen early on, show at least some continuity across time, and influence personal
preferences and behaviors throughout life.

How much empirical support is there for these assumptions? Maccoby (2002) has argued that
there is not much. According to her analysis, this is because different manifestations of gender
typing in childhood do not cohere and because there is considerable situational variation in how
gender typed a given child seems. Instead, she suggests that gender typing at this age may be
more of a group phenomenon rather than something that reflects the dispositions of relatively
more or less gender-typed children. Thus, she advocates a shift in research focus away from
individual differences in gender-related outcomes and toward the study of how gender is
manifested in groups of males and females.
Although we agree wholeheartedly about the importance of studying group-based elements of
gender, we suggest that it may be premature to dismiss the importance of examining gender
typing as an individual difference variable. Variation across contexts and domains of gender
typing does not preclude the possibility that some aspects show stability across time within
individuals. For example, some boys may show an interest in moving parts or vehicles that
persists in different forms into adulthood, even if that interest shows no connection to rough-andtumble play or to other male-typical interests and behaviors. Surprisingly, researchers have rarely
directly examined the stability of gender-typed interests and behaviors, and the existing database
is piecemeal and sketchy (Huston 1983, Powlishta et al. 1993). This is unfortunate, because
knowing more about which aspects of gender typing are stable is critical to a full understanding
of the nature and processes involved in gender development.
In the sections below, we provide a detailed analysis of longitudinal studies of gender typing in
children and what the studies show about stability. We then reevaluate the evidence that led
to Maccoby's (2002)conclusions that examining individual differences in gender typing is not
productive.
Evidence of the Stability of Gender Typing from Longitudinal Studies
What do longitudinal studies of gender development tell us about stability? Although gender
typing can involve a number of different features, we limit the present review to behavioral-type
variables (e.g., play with same-sex peers; interests and activities) rather than cognitive-type
variables such as stereotyping or gender identity. We do this because much research on gender
typing has concerned young children's peer and activity preferences. It is also partly because
cognitive variables show considerable variation during childhood (Ruble et al. 2006) and may
not be conducive to demonstrating stability, at least in young children.
Surprisingly, the few longitudinal studies of gender typing that exist have paid relatively little
attention to this issue of stability. This may be partly because it has not been a primary
component of major theories of gender development. Because most theories emphasize the
factors that lead to gender typing, longitudinal studies have often focused on such issues as how
contextual, socialization, or social-cognitive factors at one point in time affect gender-typing at a
later point in time (e.g., McHale et al. 2004) rather than on the stability of gender typing across

time. Other longitudinal studies have focused on normative changes in gender-typed behaviors or
cognitions, such as attitudes or stereotyping (e.g., Bartini 2006).
In interpreting the theoretical significance of such studies, however, it is essential to determine
whether gender typing represents some continuing characteristic of individuals that influences
future beliefs and behaviors or whether it is better viewed as linked to a particular developmental
time point or context, with little future implications (Serbin et al. 1993). Moreover, identifying
the factors that lead children to be more or less gender typed should help distinguish among
alternative theories of gender typing (Powlishta et al. 1993). Thus, information about which
elements of gender typing are stable, over what period of time, and during which developmental
periods seems essential to the study of gender development.
Longitudinal studies examining the stability of sex segregation

Some studies have used observational methods to examine the stability of preferences for
spending time with same-sex versus other-sex others. Different types of assessments have been
used: (a) split-half correlations (e.g., across odd versus even weeks), (b) cross-situational
stability (e.g., across indoor and outdoor play); and (c) test-retest (temporal) stability (whether
sex segregation scores are correlated over some period of time).
The findings have been mixed, both across studies and across measures, and most studies have
involved small samples and relatively short time periods (six months or less). To
illustrate, Maccoby & Jacklin (1987)reported nonsignificant test-retest reliability over a oneweek period among 4-year-olds (0.39) and among 6-year-olds (0.17). They did find crosssituational (indoor-outdoor) stability in preschoolers, but for girls only (0.44). Powlishta et al.
(1993) used a split-half reliability procedure across odd and even days over a four- to six-month
period and found that sex segregation showed significant stability for preschool boys (0.73) but
not for girls (0.20). Lloyd & Duveen (1992) found significant temporal stability (0.40) in
children ranging in age from about 4 to 7 years when they correlated the proportion of same-sex
play from one term to the next. Turner et al. (1993) also examined temporal stability in a large
sample (n = 161) of 4- to 4-year-old children from two countries across eight sessions. Sex
segregation scores in sessions one to four were correlated with sessions five to eight at
significant or marginal levels (0.3 to 0.7).
As a final example of studies examining relatively short-term stability, Martin & Fabes
(2001) assessed sex segregation over two consecutive academic terms for preschool and
kindergarten children. Observations took place inside and outside every weekday for six months.
This study is unusual because of the large number of observations (about 300 per child) and
because of the use of multiple forms of stability assessment. First, split-half procedures (odd and
even weeks) showed high and significant correlations for both sexes and for younger and older
children (0.690.84). Second, as suggested by Epstein (1980), they calculated stability
coefficients with data aggregated over differing lengths of time, a procedure that reduces error of
measurement. The one-week coefficients were low (below 0.3), but as the number of weeks of

aggregated data increased, the stability coefficients showed large increases, such that when data
were aggregated over eight-week periods, stability coefficients rose to the 0.5 to 0.6 range and
continued to rise across larger units of time. Finally, they found considerable temporal stability
(>0.7) across the two academic terms. These findings suggest that a relatively large number of
observations, spread over time, may be needed to observe stability in sex segregation. Thus, prior
conclusions about a lack of individual stability in same-sex peer preferences may be misleading.
In short, some longitudinal studies show reasonably impressive stability of individual differences
in sex segregation. One problem with these studies, however, is that stability is examined within
a group context that does not change. That is, stability may be found not because of individual
differences in same-sex preferences, but rather because groups are formed early in the class year,
and these structures are maintained (Maccoby & Jacklin 1987). Thus, the results of longitudinal
studies involving longer periods of time are of considerable interest.
Unfortunately, few studies have examined temporal stability for longer than six months, and, as
with short-duration research, the findings are mixed. For example, Maccoby & Jacklin
(1987) examined stability in sex segregation in children across a two-year period (4 to 6
years). Given the low level of short-term stability found in this study, as described above, the
authors did not expect to find, and did not find, much evidence of temporal stability, except for a
significant correlation (0.31) over time for boys, but only for outdoor play. In contrast, Serbin et
al. (1993) did find long-term temporal stability from one year to the next using a peernomination procedure (e.g., participants selecting photos of the children with whom they most
like to play) in 5- to 12-year-olds. It is not clear exactly why this paper-and-pencil measure might
yield more stable estimates, but it may be that the situational variation in observations was
eliminated and that only the strongest relationships were assessed this way. Regardless, it is
impressive that temporal stability was found across a time period when classrooms had changed.
Taken together, despite some nonsignificant findings, it seems fair to conclude that individual
differences in sex segregation do show both internal consistency (split-half reliability) and
temporal stability, given sufficient power and numbers of observations. Although observational
data suggest that a child may vary in same-sex play from week to week, when observations are
aggregated across multiple weeks, stability is seen. It would be helpful in future research to use
data-aggregation procedures to see how many weeks of observations are needed to show
temporal stability across one year or more. It would also be worthwhile to examine how long
individual differences in segregation are maintained. For example, do preschool preferences
predict preferences in middle-elementary school?
Longitudinal studies of the stability of interests and activity preferences

Studies of other indices of gender typing have been somewhat more consistent in finding
temporal stability. Some observational studies of preschoolers and/or kindergartners have shown
short-term, test-retest temporal stability in stereotyped toy and activity choices during free play
(e.g., Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987, Martin & Fabes 2001). Other observational studies have shown

significant stability in terms of split-half consistency (e.g., Connor & Serbin 1977, Powlishta et
al. 1993). In addition, gender-stereotyped activity preferences have shown moderate to high
stability over varying periods of time, as assessed with test-retest reliability involving penciland-paper measures completed either by the children themselves (e.g., Edelbrock & Sugawara
1978,Golombok & Rust 1993) or by parents about their children (e.g., Golombok & Rust 1993).
One recent, impressive study examined the stability of gender typing using pencil-and-paper
measures (Golombok et al. 2008). This study warrants a more detailed look because it involved a
much longer time period (from age 2 to 8 years) and a much larger sample (more than 2700
girls and 2700 boys) than has been typical. When the children were ages 2, 3, and 5 years
old, parents completed a toy and activity questionnaire (Pre-School Activities Inventory, or
PSAI; Golombok & Rust 1993) about their child's preferences; at age 8, the children completed
an age-appropriate modified version, the Children's Activities Inventory (CAI). To examine
temporal stability during the preschool years (test-retest reliability), intercorrelations in PSAI
scores were examined among all three time points (ages 2, 3, and 5 years). Stability
coefficients for the PSAI were high: 0.60.7 for adjacent time points and 0.5 from 2 to 5 years.
These levels are comparable to or even higher than those reported in earlier studies and thus
demonstrate moderate to high stability in gender-typed interests and activities over time periods
ranging from 1 to 2 years.
Golombok et al. (2008) also examined stability between the preschool years and age 8, though
not with test-retest correlations. Instead, at age 3, boys and girls separately were divided into
nine categories of gender typing based on PSAI scores; children who varied in their categories
were compared on CAI scores. For both sexes, the children who were most gender typed at age
3 continued to be so at age 8. A similar analysis compared CAI scores at age 8 with scores
indicating the trajectory (acceleration in gender-typed interests) from ages 2 to 5 years. As
predicted, children showing the greatest increase in gender typing at a young age were those with
higher levels of gender-typical behavior at age 8.
These findings are interesting in part because the trends run counter to what would be expected
from regression to the mean, in that the children who were most gender typed to start with
became relatively more so over time. Moreover, the findings suggested the possibility that
individual differences in gender typing may be more stable in children who are relatively high or
low in gender typing when young, a pattern that was particularly marked for the least gendertyped girls. It would be of great interest in future research to examine the stability and trajectory
of gender typing among children at the extremes, such as tomboys or girly girls.
Taken together, longitudinal studies of gender-typed interests and activities show fairly
compelling evidence of stability of individual differences. Future research needs to examine
stability across one year or more using observations rather than paper-and-pencil measures to be
certain that the apparent stability of gender typing reflects actual behaviors rather than stability in
self- or parent perceptions.

Interpretations and Conclusions About the Evidence from Longitudinal Studies

As we discussed in the introduction to this section, Maccoby (2002) suggested that the study of
individual differences in gender typing was no longer productive on the basis of various types of
evidence, most notably: (a) the idea that sex typing is multidimensional and lacks coherence, and
(b) the situational variability of gender typing. In our review of the longitudinal data, we
identified some reasons why prior findings might have led to Maccoby's conclusions. Most
importantly, the longitudinal studies suggest that a lack of power and insufficient reliability may
have made it difficult to observe temporal stability within domains or coherence across domains.
The case is particularly clear for studies of sex segregation. The studies of very short-term
stability suggest that children do vary from day-to-day and week-to-week in the proportion of
time spent with same- versus other-sex peers. Over greater numbers of data points and amounts
of time, however, relative consistency of individual children can be seen (e.g., Martin & Fabes
2001). This observation also speaks to the apparent lack of coherence seen across different
indices of gender typing. Indeed, when stable, reliable measures are used, coherence across
indices is often observed (e.g., Martin & Fabes 2001, Serbin et al. 1993). In short, based on the
findings reviewed, we conclude that the study of individual differences in gender typing may be
more productive than has recently been thought. Nevertheless, we also urge caution: It would be
unreasonable to conclude that gender typing is strong and stable throughout life, because the
database is limited in a number of ways.
First, it is not clear how long such differences remain stable. For example, gender-typed behavior
is perhaps most visible in young children, when rigid distinctions appear in children's appearance
and play. Many if not most preschool girls show some manifestation of extreme girliness,
refusing to wear anything but a dress, often pink and frilly, whereas boys are draped with
superman capes or are holding swords and acting as superheroes (Dunn & Hughes 2001, Halim
et al. 2009, Maccoby 1998, Ruble et al. 2007a). We know almost nothing about the stability of
such behaviors after preschool, however. It may be necessary to examine how one kind of gender
typing at one age relates to a different kind at a later age (McHale et al. 2004). Does a lack of
interest in dresses predict later interest in sports or playing with boys? Future research using both
longitudinal and retrospective methods may provide answers to such questions.
Second, it is not clear which forms of gender typing may be most stable and best characterize the
essence of individual differences. The review of longitudinal studies focused on two frequently
examined elements of gender typing (sex segregation and interests/activity preferences). Other
aspects of gender development may turn out to be more fundamental, however, at least at some
ages. One such candidate is a sense of oneself in relation to males and females. How important
or central is gender to self-concept? How typical does one feel as a male or female?
Multidimensional theories of social identity demonstrate the significance of such distinctions
after the early elementary school years (Ashmore et al. 2004, Egan & Perry 2001). Moreover,
perhaps stable individual differences are characterized not only by general feelings of typicality
and centrality but also by the specific nature of one's fit with gender (Tobin et al. 2009). For
example, one preadolescent girl may recognize that she is not a typical female in the sense of

having more interest than other females have in sports and less interest in room decoration or
make-up, but she may feel part of girls as a group and want to look and act feminine in manner.
Other children's sense of gender may emphasize avoiding gender-typical characteristics that they
dislike: a girl may eschew the giggly, girly stuff; a boy may try to distance himself from macho
elements of maleness.
Finally, future research might examine whether stable individual differences in certain genderrelated cognitions emerge after preschool. Most children pass through a phase of believing that it
is morally wrong for a boy to wear nail polish or for a girl to play football, but this typically ends
by early elementary school (Ruble et al. 2006). Thus, individual differences in tolerance of
gender atypical behaviors may be found later. Indeed, recent research has shown quite high
levels of stability (0.50.6) in gender role attitudes over a two-year period in 10- to 12-year-olds
(McHale et al. 2004). Also, a recent study provided direct support for the idea that once the
period of rigidity has passed, individual differences may emerge. Stable individual differences in
reactions to gender role violations were found across two time points and related to self-esteem
only for children 5 years or older, past peak rigidity (Lurye et al. 2008).
In short, our analysis of longitudinal research suggests that conclusions about the lack of
evidence for stable individual differences in gender typing may have been limited by looking too
hard and with too few data points for some unified construct. Although gender typing is clearly
multidimensional, there may be stable elements in some components (e.g., behavior/interests)
but not in others (e.g., attitudes/stereotypes), at least at particular ages. Perhaps, then, it would be
productive to examine individual differences in gender typing as a developmentally malleable
construct. Developmental factors may limit the extent to which biological predispositions can be
expressed, change the way children are cognitively capable of thinking about gender, and expose
them to varying social influences. Thus, the form of gender typing that is paramount may vary at
different phases of life, and different combinations of biological, cognitive, and socialization
processes could contribute to indi vidual differences in gender typing at different times.
Go to:

HOW DOES THE STUDY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT BENEFIT FROM

DYNAMIC ANALYSES?
Gender development research has been guided by theories that offer differing explanations about
the origins of gender typing and sex differences. These theories emphasize a variety of different
processes, including cognitive developmental changes (e.g., Bigler & Liben 2007, Kohlberg
1966, Martin & Halverson 1981), socialization (Bussey & Bandura 1999, Mischel 1966), and
proximal (McCarthy & Arnold 2008) and distal biological influences (e.g., evolutionary
pressures) (see Ruble et al. 2006 for a review of these theories as well as the multiple distinctions
currently being made for each type of process). Despite differences, a common element among
these theories is reliance on data collected at one or few time points, and in rare cases, multiple
assessments are made over time and then are aggregated. Aggregation and limited assessment

methods provide information about concurrent relations and long-term patterns; however, these
methods sacrifice important information about variability over time, and are not focused on
assessing short-term, moment-to-moment changes.
By applying methods and concepts used in the physical and biological sciences, the variation that
most psychologists have considered error or background noise may be found to contain the
dynamic signature of purposive behavior (Van Orden et al. 2003, p. 331). Dynamic studies of
this background noise in behavior are beginning to reveal new and potentially important insights
about a range of psychological and social processes, including motor development (e.g., Adolph
et al. 2003, Kelso 1995), emotional development (Lewis & Granic 2000), dyadic play (Steenbeek
& van Geert 2008), structure of the self (Nowak et al. 2000), cognitive development (van Geert
2003), and stereotyping (e.g., Correll 2008). This revolutionary approach to describing and
understanding patterns, based on complexity theory (Waldrop 1992) or commonly labeled
dynamic systems approach or dynamic systems theory (Thelen & Smith 1998), has been
gaining ground across fields.
Dynamic systems (DS) approaches have potential for illuminating processes involved in gender
development by providing both conceptual and methodological advances that enable researchers
to assess fine-grained as well as larger-grained developmental temporal variations (LichtwarckAschoff et al. 2008) and, especially important for developmental research, to delineate
relationships between different timescales (e.g., Lewis 2002). A comprehensive theory of gender
development needs to describe and explain long-term developmental changes but must also
describe how gender is experienced and plays out in short-term interactions with objects and
people. DS approaches provide conceptual underpinnings and methods for identifying patterns of
behavior change over time, and in some cases, how these patterns may relate to one another.
The DS approach is appealing for a number of other reasons. Gender-related topics (e.g., work
and family issues) have taken center stage in heated discussions about the roles of nature versus
nurture, mainly concerning the origins and nature of sex differences. Because the DS approach
advocates no distinctions between the sources of influence on a system (Oyama 2000), they offer
a rapprochement for debates about nature versus nurture. Furthermore, the DS approach has
potential to provide a theoretical umbrella that would incorporate aspects of many gender
development theories. Specifically, adopting a DS approach suggests new ways to collect,
analyze, and describe data but provides limited guidance on which parameters to study; existing
theories help to fill that gap.
Thus far, DS analysis of gender development has been limited to a few topics: sexual orientation
(e.g.,Diamond 2007), children's sex segregation (Martin 2008, Martin et al. 2005), and motherinfant interactions (Fausto-Sterling et al. 2008). Below, we provide a description of basic
concepts of DS approaches and then employ topics on gender development and review empirical
studies to illustrate some of the major features of dynamic approaches (see Thelen & Smith
1994, 1998, 2006).

Dynamics and Complex Systems: Basic Concepts

Dynamic analyses are applied to complex systems, which are systems characterized by simple,
interrelated interacting elements, where the interactions of these elements give rise to higherorder global patterns (e.g.,Waldrop 1992). This process, called self-organization, does not require
a higher-order agent and is not preprogrammed. Structures arise as the elements spontaneously
organize and reorganize into emergent systems that are larger and more complex (e.g., Williams
1997). Examples of complex systems abound: heart-rate variability, army ant swarms, termite
nest building, and the formation of hurricanes.
Scientists interested in applying dynamic systems must first identify and define the variable that
represents the system of interest, called the collective variable (Thelen & Smith 2006). The
collective variable should be clearly defined and observable, and understanding how it behaves
over different conditions is important. In developmental psychology, some classic examples of
collective variables that have been studied include walking, reaching, and word learning.
Dynamic systems are marked by fluctuations from factors internal and external to the system,
and this inherent activity provides potential for changes to occur in the system. In some cases,
the system dampens down the fluctuations, allowing stability; in other cases, the system is
perturbed, that is, it loses coherence, exhibits high degrees of variability, and may experience a
qualitative change (i.e., phase shift) to a new coordinated state. As dynamic systems experience
fluctuations, they have certain preferred states that occur with a high probability under certain
conditions (called attractors). When displaced from these preferred states, the system tends to
return there (Thelen & Smith 2006). Some of these attractors are strong; others are weaker and
have less pull on behavior. Other states act as repellors because behavior never or seldom
settles there.
A goal for researchers is to understand and map both the immediate and longer-term
stability/variability of complex systems. Researchers strive to identify the shifts among states
because this is when the agents of change are most easily identified. These change agents (called
control parameters) may be obvious (e.g., practice facilitating learning), but they also may
appear incidental or minor (Thelen & Smith 2006). For instance, in a classic study, King & West
(1988) found that male cowbird song development was influenced by a seemingly unimportant
factorthe patterning of brief wing flickering in female cowbirds. In developmental research, an
aspect of language development that may appear unrelated to another domain of language
development has been identified as an agent of change: Children who show a fast rate of word
learning are limited in their ability to access well-known words (Gershkoff-Stowe & Smith
1997). Regardless of their salience, such agents of change are more easily identified at transition
points because they vary with changes in the collective variable.

Children's Play Choices: Sex Segregation as a Dynamic System

Children's tendency to assort by sex is an example of a complex system. Sex segregation is a
pervasive, early-developing pattern that increases over childhood until interactions are so
segregated that boys and girls have been described as growing up in separate cultures (Maccoby
& Jacklin 1987). A DS analysis of sex segregation may focus on the patterns that emerge over
time in a child's choice of play partners and examine how these choices vary over the school
year. Important variables to examine when children first begin congregating with peers (e.g., in a
new class) might include social factors (e.g., each child's prior experiences with peers) as well as
biological factors (e.g., hormone levels) or biosocial influences, such as the child's temperament
(e.g., being inhibited). Children's choices are interdependent with others in the class: Choices are
constrained by who is available to play on a given day, at a given time, and depend upon the
choices made by others in the class immediately before the child decides to find a partner.
Degrees of freedom for choosing a partner are lost the more other children have already claimed
a partner.
Through repeated interactions and reshuffling, patterns of play may change as interactions
become increasingly governed by children's experiences with classmates; their responsiveness to
bids, play styles, and shared interests. Individual children may settle into particular patterns of
play with particular partners. For instance, from individual children's experiences, more and
longer-playing same-sex dyads may emerge in the system. As these processes play out over
longer time intervals, a child's dyadic play may grow into larger groups of same-sex children,
and these groupings may be formed and maintained depending upon the interests of children or
the desires or openness of the initial dyad to including other children. Interestingly, simulations
have demonstrated that even when individuals show only very slight preferences for similar
others, segregation emerges (Schelling 1971, Wilensky 1997).
Play patterns can also be viewed from the perspective of the entire class. A series of bird'seye
snapshots of a playground would show that the number of children in class who are involved in
sex-segregated play varies as pairings and groupings of children form and break up, with
groupings shifting over time. With more children involved in same-sex groupings, these groups
may have enhanced appeal, and so other children will be drawn into the groups, thus illustrating
how the higher-order structure of same-sex groups may also influence patterning of interactions.
Sex segregation as an emergent structure of the system may become increasingly evident at both
the individual-child and classroom levels. Although no one person directed the class or an
individual child to choose same-sex partners for play, sex-segregation can emerge, suggesting a
self-organizing system.
Variability in Systems: Sex Segregation, Gender-Typed Activities, and Gender Identity
Dynamic systems analyses involve studying temporal patterninghow a system transforms from
one state to another over time. Scientists studying a system need to understand the short- and
long-term stability and change in the system so the regular variability is distinguishable from

extreme variability. Extreme variability holds particular fascination as it may signal a shift of a
system from one kind of attractor to a new kind of attractor, or to a more highly organized state.
For this reason, scientists using dynamic analyses may use cross-sectional data to narrow their
focus to the time frames of most interest and then collect intensive data about variations in the
primary variables of interest as well as about potential agents of change.
A gender application to illustrate this point would be the theoretically important issue of how
gender-typed toy choices emerge. Since cross-sectional research suggests that boys begin to
show gender-typed toy choices (e.g., playing with trucks) around the age of two (Berenbaum et
al. 2008, Ruble et al. 2006), bracketing this time with intensive data collection about toy choices
would be particularly interesting. Also, to better understand factors influencing such choices,
other information about the play situation (e.g., other available toys, presence of peers), parents
(e.g., stereotypic beliefs), and children (e.g., gender knowledge, activity level) should be
collected. Developmental changes in any of these may influence boys' sense of control or
feelings of pressure concerning toy selection. Studies of fine-grained changes from day-to-day or
moment-to-moment gain import, and multiple data points are needed to detect these patterns.
When children enter preschool, qualitative changes may occur in their toy and activity choices.
Preschool is a dramatically different setting from that at home; more peers of both sexes are
available as play partners, and adult supervision may be low. Dynamic analyses involving
longitudinal data about toy choices at home and school would shed light on this transition.
Analysis of the activities children engage in at home versus at preschool, and the presence and
reactions of peers, would provide insights into whether children's preferences change
dynamically in preschool, where many toys are available, peers may tease them for genderinappropriate play, and adults may react differently than their parents.
Fine-grained data have been collected on young children's peer choices, making this topic
suitable for illustrating both stability and variability in dynamic systems. Controversy has arisen
about the stability of sex segregation (see How Stable Are Individual Differences in Gender
Typing section, above), but it appears that as more snapshots of behavior are aggregated, sex
segregation becomes more stable until it reaches a moderately high level (Martin & Fabes 2001).
The stability of sex segregation may be questioned in part because of the variability in this
behavior from day-to-day. To illustrate this more clearly, notice the day-to-day variation in
children's play partners, based on observations conducted during the fall term for four children
depicted in Figure 1. Variability is apparent, although two children also show strong same-sex
preferences day-to-day, but the other two children do not. There also is stability over time;
children's patterns remain similar into the spring term of data collection. Extending this type of
analysis to explore when and how variations occur would be fascinating.

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 ...

Another approach for applying dynamic analysis is to focus on the potential instability of
constructs believed to be stable. Walking is a stable feature of most humans' behavior, but the
exact form of walking at any given time depends on many different factors, including the type of
surface being walked upon (e.g., thick rug versus tiled floor, slope of surface). Most researchers
think of gender identity as being a stable feature, but if we consider when variations in gender
identity might occur, it broadens the perspective on gender identity. An interesting analysis
would be to explore variations in feelings (e.g., gender typicality, comfort) and displays of
gender identity (e.g., style of dressing, voice, gestures) over different types of social surfaces
(e.g., being in a sports bar, holding a baby) (Martin 2000). Analysis of moment-to-moment
changes in the patterning of gender identity may reveal surprising insights about gender
development (a similar point is made about identity formation in Lichtwarck-Aschoff et al.
2008). For instance, collecting intensive time-series data about feelings of gender typicality (e.g.,
How similar do you feel to your own sex right now?) over a range of situations may illustrate
that feelings of gender typicality are strong and show little variability in situations where one is a
minority member, but that gender typicality is low but more variable when one is in a same-sex
situation.
Dynamic Contexts: Gender Cognitions and Socialization
An important feature of dynamic analysis is how context is viewed. Although context is
considered important in gender theories, it is often conceptualized as being distal (i.e., cultural
contexts). In contrast, DS theorists view context as a dynamic characteristic of interactions, one
that is temporally and spatially close and is an aspect of the interaction process itself (Steenbeek
& van Geert 2008). Even influences typically considered distal, stable, or abstract are
represented and carried forward in time by their embodiment within everyday interactions. For
instance, gender stereotypes and gender identity become embodied as children dynamically
engage in genderingremembering gender and acting on genderincorporating the
immediate contextual factors, and this being carried forward to the next moment of knowing and
acting on gender.
Developmental processes that occur in real time then carry over and become consolidated and
generalized across different contexts (Fischer & Bidell 1998), and these then influence and
constrain behavior (e.g.,Lewis 2000) (although there is controversy about the extent to which this
happens) (for review of the issue, see Witherington 2007). For instance, as toddlers come to
understand their sex, become motivated by same-sex expectations, and begin to develop
stereotypes, these features can be carried into interactions with others. The patterning and display
of the gendered self may evolve into new forms (e.g., styles of dress, play partners, activities),

which vary from moment-to-moment and over longer time periods. Thinking of gender as being
enacted in each interaction is similar to proposals from sociological research traditions focusing
on the social construction of gender (West & Zimmerman 1991).
Gender socialization provides a good example of how both the child's and parents' cognitions are
enacted in moment-to-moment interactions through the dynamic embodiment of gender. Parental
expectations about what it means to have a child who is either a boy or girl (expectations colored
by cultural values, etc.) become displayed as actions with the child (e.g., glances, touching, toy
offering), and these embodied expectations interact with the child's phenotypic and early
behavioral features. Thus, gender socialization involves parents and siblings, peers, other
socialization agents, and the individual child, who all act and interact in varied contexts.
Methods and Analyses of Dynamic Systems
Studying complex systems involves identifying the collective variables that capture the behavior
of interest and then collecting a long time series of data to watch the emergence of behaviors.
Social scientists may avoid dynamic analyses because they expect that they will have to collect
thousands of observations to identify complex patterns of behavior. However, even shorter time
frames and smaller sets of time-series data may reveal important features that traditional methods
may not disclose (Williams 1997), especially when investigators use some of the newly proposed
analytic techniques (e.g., Finan et al. 2008).
The recognition and study of complex systems have promoted development of an array of
techniques designed to understand these systems, including techniques for nonlinear dynamics,
time-series analyses, data visualization (e.g., Lamey et al. 2004), and computer simulations to
model the behavior of systems (e.g.,Griffin et al. 2004, Schafer et al. 2009). This new and
expanded toolbox provides better ways of describing, analyzing, and interpreting temporal data
of all types (Ward 2002). The mathematics involved in describing systems can be complex and
unfamiliar to psychologists (e.g., May 1976); thus, DS ideas often are applied heuristically for
thinking about patterns and for directing the kinds of data that are obtained rather than using the
toolkit of analyses that describe obtained time-series data. However, psychologists have become
increasingly interested in developing and applying these analytic tools (see Boker & Wenger
2007, van Geert 2003). For instance, Thelen and colleagues (2001) conducted rigorous modeling
of a developmental phenomenon involving touching patterns of infants (the A-not-B effect),
which was originally identified by Piaget. Others are refining and expanding upon DS
approaches to better integrate these ideas with connectionist models (e.g., Spencer & Schoner
2003) and neurobiology (Lewis 2005). Regardless of how it is employed, DS perspectives hold
promise for revealing patterns of gender development previously unrecognized.

Dynamic Analyses of Gendered Play Partners and Activities

Not all the applications of DS to gender development are as abstract as we have presented above.
In this section, we outline specific examples of studies that have been conducted to apply a
dynamic systems approach to gender development.
Data visualization, attractors, and repellors in children's sex segregation

In a dynamic view of sex segregation, children are seen to settle into certain behavioral patterns.
This illustrates a characteristic of a dynamic system: Despite a large number of possible patterns
among system elements, only a few ever stabilize. Dynamic analyses have been used to study the
patterns of children's play partners in preschool classes and the role of gender in these
interactions. Martin and colleagues (2005) used a new data-visualization tool, called state space
grids (SSGs), to explore the extent to which preschool children showed attraction for same-sex
and behaviorally similar children. Developmental scientists interested in applying DS methods
(e.g., Granic & Lamey 2002, Hollenstein et al. 2004) recognized the need for a methodology to
visualize system dynamics; thus, they developed the SSG technique (e.g., Lewis et al. 1999).
SSGs involve mapping of dimensions onto a state space to determine the regularity or stability of
the patterns (for a description of how to use GridWare, see Hollenstein 2007). In Martin et al.
(2005), SSGs were constructed based on children's choices of play partners derived from scan
observations of three classes of preschool children over several months in order to examine
whether sex of peers and behavioral tendencies act as attractors. Children were divided into types
using cluster analysis: externalizing, internalizing, and socially competent children; play patterns
of target children with types of peers (rather than one other child) were analyzed using SSGs. If
children's play partner choices related strongly to behavioral similarity, then competent children
should choose other competent children regardless of sex; if their selections relate to sex, then
children should choose on the basis of similar sex regardless of behavior.
Attractors were characterized in three ways. First, a high number of individual interactions in the
state space regions representing play with same-sex peers or particular peer qualities (e.g.,
externalizing) would indicate that those spaces are attractors. If same-sex peers act as attractors,
then we would expect, for instance, that girls would have more interactions in the girl peer
region than in the boy peer region. Second, when a region is an attractor, children should enter
it quickly; for instance, early in the time series, girls would be expected to play with girls and
would have few (or no) interactions with boys before they move into the girl peer region.
Third, if a region is an attractor, children should return to the region quickly. Whenever girls
leave the girl peer region, they would be expected to have relatively few interactions with boys
before moving back to playing with girls.
The results supported these ideas. Same-sex peers were strong attractors for children: Both sexes
had more than twice as many interactions with same-sex than with other-sex peers, were faster to
return to same-sex peers, and started playing with them more quickly. Interestingly, these

patterns were apparent even in the first 20 observations obtained on children after only several
weeks of preschool. Figure 2 illustrates a typical pattern for a girl's first 20 interactions. The SSG
shows data from a competent girl, whose first coded play bout is with a girl (open circle), and the
pattern shows that she plays with girls more than with boys. Externalizing and social competence
also contributed to behavioral states, but patterns varied by sex of child and peer (e.g., boys were
more attracted to externalizing boys than to externalizing girls). As Figure 2illustrates, the
competent girl played much more with competent girls than with other girls, but she did not play
with competent boys at all. Overall, the findings suggest that both the sex of peers and their
behavioral qualities help fashion the social organization in the classroom.

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 ...

In a similar study, Martin (2008) compared patterns of children who were highly gender typed in
play to those with less gender-typed play patterns in order to examine whether children who
differed in their overall patterns showed differences early in the time series of observations.
Interestingly, within the first 20 observed interactions, highly gender-typed children experienced
more positive emotions with same-sex than with other-sex peers; less gender-typed children
showed no difference. These findings suggest that children who have early positive emotional
experiences with same-sex peers but not with other-sex peers incorporate these experiences into
their play, such that same-sex peers have increasing appeal, whereas other-sex peers lose their
appeal. In this way, emotional experiences with peers appear to contribute to the overall
patterning of children's play and to sex segregation in the class.
These studies use data-visualization techniques to illustrate a new approach to examining peer
interaction patterns and suggest that both the sex of peers and peers' behavior act as attractors.
Additional research involving moment-to-moment coding of behavior and new techniques for
analyzing group patterns will allow for an even more detailed dynamic analyses of children's
behavior with peers.
Self-organized criticality in the temporal patterning of children's gendered behavior

Many complex systems show a particularly intriguing pattern of organization, called selforganization near a critical state. These systems are balanced between enough stability to
maintain order and enough instability or variation to be adaptive to change (Bak et al. 1989).

Adaptability is enhanced because new alternatives can be generated as needed in response to

varying circumstances (e.g., Van Orden et al. 2003). In physiological systems, self-organized
criticality is associated with well-being and health, and its loss or deterioration is related to
disease, depression, and aging (Goldberger 1996, Linkenkaer-Hansen et al. 2005, Sosnoff &
Newell 2008).
Self-organization near a critical state involves self-similarity across time-scales; in other
words, if one small portion of the time series is magnified, its appearance is similar to the larger
time series in which it is embedded. That is, small-scale patterns reflect the patterns that would
be expected at larger scales, such that identifying a regularity in a 2-minute window of time may
share similarity to a pattern found in a 16-minute window, and both may share similarity to a
pattern found on a much longer timescale (e.g., developmental changes that occur from early to
later childhood). This self-organization near a critical state is represented by the presence of
long-term, positively correlated variability in a time series (Treffner & Kelso 1999, Van Orden et
al. 2003). Time series with completely independent data do not exhibit self-similarity. Given the
implications for understanding different timescales and how they relate to one another, the
implications of finding self-similarity in systems are far-ranging, especially for developmental
scientists.
DiDonato (2008) applied both dynamic and traditional analyses to explore whether children's
gendered behavior shows self-organized criticality and whether temporal patterns relate to
children's adjustment. Brief observations of preschool children's activities and play partners were
conducted daily over several months. By combining gender typing of activities and play partners
across observations each day, DiDonato derived a single indicator of gendered behavior. Each
child's time series was plotted and analyzed for self-organized criticality (e.g., Hurst 1951), and
the results indicated this pattern, suggesting that children exhibited flexibility in their gendered
behavior. For example, the implication of the findings is that a girl who normally plays with girls
may adapt her behavior by playing with a boy if he is playing with her favorite toy. Furthermore,
flexibility in gendered behavior was positively related to adjustment in girls but not in boys.
Boys' restricted gender roles may constrain the relation between flexible behavior and
adjustment.
These findings have implications for debates about how gender roles relate to adjustment and
provide a compelling example of how both traditional and dynamic approaches can be combined
to yield more information than would either approach alone. In this case, the short-term
patterning of activities and partners related to adjustment, and it suggests that further
explorations of changes in children's gendered behavior at different timescales are warranted.
In sum, DS approaches have potential for providing a new lens for viewing gender development.
DS approaches adopt unique views of context, focus on describing variability, provide
information about patterning of behavior over both short and longer developmental time frames,
and suggest new techniques and different methods of data analyses and collection. Adopting a
DS approach also has the potential to provide an all-encompassing theoretical umbrella and

deflates controversy surrounding the roles of nature and nurture in gender development. At a
broader level, DS approaches crosscut disciplinary boundaries, bridging methods and concepts
across disciplines. Highlights of the appeal of exploring DS approaches include discovering new
answers to old problems, recognizing new types of questions, and ultimately advancing
alternative accounts of gender development.
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CONCLUSIONS
Children's gender development unfolds over long time frames of average or normative change,
over shorter time frames such as the emergence of relatively stable individual preferences in with
whom or with what to play during the early school years, and over much shorter time frames
micro timescalessuch as when an individual child selects an outfit to wear or carries on an
interaction with a peer over a toy. In the present review, we illustrated each of these time frames
in terms of a few specific current, and sometimes controversial, topics in the field of gender
development.
First, we took the long view, examining normative changes from infancy through middle
adolescence in key aspects of children's beliefs and behaviors regarding gender distinctions. In
this way, we were able to speak to the question of temporal ordering of different elements of
gender development and, thereby, analyze certain controversies within the field about how early
children understand gender distinctions and how that understanding relates to behavior.
Moreover, the analysis of temporal ordering helps generate hypotheses for future research about
what indications of gender prejudice, such as ingroup favoritism, might represent for young
children who can understand gender stereotypes but not necessarily status inequities between the
sexes.
Normative trends involve only averages across individuals; they do not, however, inform us
about whether there are stable individual differences in expressions of gender typing. Whether
there are continuities in individual gender typing over time has been another important but
controversial topic in gender development. For instance, identifying stability in sex segregation
would suggest that individual children vary in their preferences and that sex segregation is not
simply due to situational variability or normative constraints as had previously been assumed.
Thus, in the second section, we reviewed studies of longitudinal change within individuals over
shorter periods of time. We discovered that there is more stability in sex segregation and gendertyped activities and preferences than previously thought. However, future research must
determine how long stability exists and over which periods of development.
Another advantage of normative trends is that they indicate at what points developmentally it
would be useful to search for stable individual differences, such as after periods of rapid change,
as when children first enter preschool. In the third section, we described a new tool for taking
advantage of such opportunities. Dynamic systems theory provides a coherent set of principles

and methods for examining change over differing time frames. Socialization, cognitive, and
biological processes can be explored over multiple time frames using techniques that focus on
temporal patterning of behavior. Dynamic systems theory complements existing theories by
providing more nuanced views of gender at different timescales. For instance, sex segregation
exhibits both variability and stability from a dynamic perspective. Particularly intriguing is the
potential for small-scale patterns to provide insights into large-scale patterns. For systems that
exhibit self-similarity, a pattern that appears at a microlevel time frame mimics the pattern found
at a more macrolevel time frame. Considering similarity across timescales is an idea that, in our
view, has no counterpart in developmental research or theorizing.
Developmental research on gender has primarily focused attention on the longer timescales to
assess normative developmental patterning. Less attention has been focused on shorter
timescales to explore individual patterns and stability of behavior, and very little has been done
to explore gender development in terms of micro timescales. We hope our review has made it
clear that comprehensive explanations of gender need to consider each of these timescale
perspectives.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This review was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (1 R01 HD45816) and a grant from the T. Denny Sanford Foundation awarded to
Carol Lynn Martin; a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Research
Grant (1 R01 HD04994) to Diane N. Ruble; and a National Science Foundation IRADS grant
(0721383). We are very grateful to Faith Greulich for assistance in preparing the manuscript and
to Nia Amazeen, Matt DiDonato, May Ling Halim, Tom Hollenstein, and Kristina Zosuls for
comments on an earlier draft.
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Footnotes
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the
objectivity of this review.

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