3. How are gender roles developed?
• Learn from those who are around
• From the child’s understanding of gender
concept
• Categorizing emphasized differences
4. When are gender roles adopted?
• Gender identity stage: 9months-3years old
• Gender stability stage: 4 years old
• Gender consistency stage: 4-5 years old
5. How might gender identity change?
• Older children don’t live by as rigid of rules
• Understand that sex roles are social
conventions
• Abandons the assumption that same sex
behavior is preferable
6. What influences shape perceptions of
gender roles?
• Media
• Peers
• Parents
• Teachers
7. What behaviors might indicate
changes in gender identity?
• Playmate preference
• Toy preference
• Same gender teaching/learning
8. Speakers Notes
Very early in life children begin to learn
gender concepts and sex roles. They learn this
from those who are around them, their own
understanding of the concept, and from those
who unknowingly categorize male and female
behavior. This learning begins to take place as
early as three months old and is a permanent
lesson by age five. There are many factors
responsible for this knowledge: the
media, parents, friends, and teachers.
9. Speakers Notes
Some changes that might take place as a result
of gender identity are preferring to play with
same gender, playing with toys that the
gender is expected to play with, and learning
from peers of the same sex. However, when
the children become adolescences they tend
to be more flexible. Also, they realize that
roles are social conventions as they abandon
the notion that same sex behavior is always
desired.
10. Reference
Bee, H. and Boyd, D. (2010). The developing
child (2th ed.) Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon
