schemas are a mental representation of items in the world- they exist for gender- e.g. boys have short hair,
children develop these schemas around 2-3. Therefore early stages are important in gender development (differs from Kohlberg who focused on later stages).
Gender Schemas will be applied to ourself and others and are adjusted as children grow. (eg meet boy with long hair) and schema will develop through assimilation (we apply the schema to new things eg boy with long hair and pink top is still a boy) and accomodation (we change the schema or add new ones eg intro of a gender-neutral schema)
Children develop a schema and then self-socialise by actively seeking out behaviour that is deemed appropriate for their gender.
Children's schemas lead them to develop a sense of ingroups (their own gender) and outgroups (a different gender)
suggests that children's understanding of gender actively develops directly seeking out learning experience and intellectually organising concepts not passively responding to stimuli (behaviourism) or observation (social learning theory)
