gender schema theory

• Main Assumption

  GST: Martin and Halverston (1983)

  They agree with Kohlberg that the key to gender development is seeking to acquire information about one’s own gender.

  However, they argue this happens before gender constancy.
• How are gender schemas formed?

  • In GST, early gender identity is acquired around 2-3 years old
  • They take an interest in their gender
  • And now start forming their gender schema
• Schemas (related to gender):

  • Mental framework of information (about gender-appropriate behaviour).
  • Help children organise and interpret experiences.
  • Help to process new, incoming information about gender.
  • Gender development is driven by readiness to categorise gender-related info using gender schemas.
• In-group and outgroup activities:

  • Children are more interested in what goes on in their own gender - in-group schema
  • Tends to avoid behaviours that belong to out-group schema.
  • Children enhance self-esteem by positively evaluating their own group (positive in-group schema) and negatively evaluating out-group (negative out-group)
  • This is why children are more focused on same-sex models as soon as they can identify their own gender.

  This is where GST differs from Kohlberg, because they say it comes before gender constancy.
• Resilience of gender:

  • Children ignore info that does not stay consistent with their in-group schema to prevent their existing schema from altering.
  • This is why children hold very fixed gender attitudes.

  This shows how gender schemas affect memory: children remember what is consistent with their in-group/out-group schemas.
• High explanatory power for why some behaviours are considered acceptable or the expectation in some cultures, but not in others.

  Cherry (2019)

  women in traditional cultures hold nurturing role and men = provider; socially acceptable for women to be housewives + men to pursue careers.

  in the West, it’s the norm for both men and women to pursue careers.

  children in traditional societies form schemas consistent with those views, whereas children in the West have less boundaries when it comes to gender perceptions and so their schema is more fluid
• Research support that shows the formation of gender schemas.

  Martin and Halverson (1983) 


  children under 6 got confused between consistent and inconsistent pictures of boys and girls. were more likely to remember stereotypes than if shown pictures of women cleaning cars;

  during recall, they would even ‘remember’ the men cleaning the cars.

  shows that children under 6 have no stability when it comes to gender because they are too young to have structured their own learning about gender and behaviour.
• Limitation = contradictory research shows development may occur earlier than Martin and Halverston suggest.


  Longitudinal study (2009) obtained data about children’s language from 9 to 21 months.

  Results = children tended to label themselves ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ at around 19 months, (when first learn how to start communicating. )

  This shows that gender labelling may be possible way earlier than Martin and Halverston suggest but children are not able to communicate it.

  Therefore this theory has limited explanatory power, and generalisability as research shows contradictory results.