Gender Schema Theory

An explanation of gender schema theory

• Gender schema theory (Bem, 1981; Martin and Halverson, 1981) sees gender identity alone as providing children with the motivation to assume gender-consistent behaviour
• Gender schema theory is different from Kohlberg’s gender development theory, which states that gender constancy by seven years old is necessary for gender-consistent behaviour to emerge
• A gender schema is a cognitive framework constructed through observation of older children and adults’ gendered behaviour.
• Developing a gender schema is a process of separating people into two genders and can happen between the ages of two to three years of age

Even a two or three year-old would identify this picture as showing a girl on the left and a boy on the right  

• Children are socialised into a binary view of gender, as toys, clothes, their parents’ occupations, hobbies, domestic chores and even the ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronouns all vary according to gender
• By the age of three years old, the child has in-group (my sex) and out-group (opposite sex) schemas:
  • In-group schemas socialise the child into gender-consistent behaviour
  • Out-group schemas are recognised as inconsistent with the child’s in-group and are initially ignored
  • Behaviour that is consistent with the appropriate gender schema is remembered better
• By the age of six, children stop ignoring out-group schemas and as their cognition develops begin to show an understanding that the opposite sex may want different things from them 
• Adolescents are more likely to reject the rigid binary view of gender and dress and act in a more androgynous manner

Adolescents are more inclined to be androgynous.

Research which investigates gender schema theory

• Martin and Halverson (1983) conducted an experiment asking young children under the age of six to recall pictures of people, and found that they recalled more gender-consistent pictures (such as a male footballer) than gender-inconsistent pictures (such as a female lorry driver), supporting the idea of gender schema negatively affecting memory for behaviour that is gender-inconsistent 
• Todd et al (2016) carried out a naturalistic observation of nursery school age children and toy preferences and the results showed that both boys and girls aged between nine and 32 months showed strongly gender-consistent preferences for toys, suggesting gender identity motivates young children to engage in gender-consistent behaviour

Evaluation of gender schema theory

Strengths

• Gender schema theory explains why children act in gender-consistent ways years before they reach Kohlberg’s stage of gender constancy, through gender identity leading to socialisation into gender norms
• Gender schema theory explains why children are more likely to recall and imitate gender-consistent behaviour rather than imitating gender-inconsistent behaviour

Weaknesses

• Gender schema theory does not fully explain why gender schemas develop in the way that they do, because it focuses too much on cognitive factors and not enough on social factors like parental influence and peer pressure
• Gender schema theory also cannot explain why some girls may prefer action figures and some boys may prefer dolls
• Gender schemas lack the same construct validity as general cognitive schemas in that they are internal mental processes that cannot be seen and their development cannot be explained, just described

Link to Issues and Debates:

Gender schema theory is reductionist, as it neglects both biological development and social context or culture, focusing instead on cognitive schemas as the sole source of gender-appropriate behaviour. It is less holistic than Kohlberg’s theory as it does not take biological stages into account. However, it could become more holistic if it considered the role of differences in socialisation by parents. Gender schema theory could also be used to critique the presentation of just two genders in the media, in pronouns, toys and children’s literature. This would help to raise awareness of the several developing gender schemas, including non-binary, transgender and agender.

Link to Approaches:

Gender schema theory belongs in the Cognitive Approach, suggesting children process and internalise information about gender by their cognition of the world around them that is divided into two genders.