Gender Schema By Phoebe, Yasheema Charis, Emily & Phoebe

What is a Schema? Gender Schema theory was developed as a response to Kohlberg’s cognitive development theory. Schemas are mental frameworks that help people organise and understand information; they also allow you to predict what to do in certain situations. Schemas are formed once a child develops a basic gender identity by observation of gender models in the environment,which the child uses to organise and direct behaviours based on the norms within the culture/society and her or his gender.

What does the gender schema theory argue? Gender schema theory argues that gender identity develops through both cognitive and social processes. The child's gender schema develops at around 2-3 years as soon as the child notices the difference between boys and girls and can label the two groups reliably. After developing the schema the child looks for evidence to support it.

How does gender Schema lead to gender differences ? Gender differences can result from gender schemas by the categorisation of behaviours and everyday objects in their association with a certain gender. Martin and Halverson suggested the presence of two sex related schemas; “in-group out- group” and the “own sex” schema. As a result a young girl may begin to identify characteristics of a stereotypical female (the in-group) and characteristics of a stereotypical male (the out-group). They would then move onto the “own-sex” schema and begin to interpret this organisation in that- ‘this type of behaviour is for females, I am female, I should behave this way.’ Theses schemas lead to development of gender differences as the children develop behaviours and ideas about the gender they associate themselves with and behave and act accordingly.

If we don't categorise information and make generalisations, we simply would not be able to manage our lives effectively. For children exposed to endless stream of new information and novel input, such processes of simplification are necessary in order to make sense of the complex world around them. The gender schema that a child develops is appropriate to that child's culture, so gender schema’s will vary from culture to culture

Research supporting the theory Martin and Little (1990) Studied 3-5 year olds and found that they had strong gender stereotypes despite only having a basic understanding of gender. This evidence suggests that little understanding of gender is needed to affect a child’s gender behaviour.

Martin, Eisenbud & Rose (1995) Told 3-5 year which toys were meant for boys and girls and then let them choose toys to play with. Boys played with the toys they’d been told were for boys and vice versa for girls. This supports the theory as it suggests that their behaviour has been influenced by what they’ve been told and is based on the norms within the culture/society.

Martin (1989) Children were asked to predict how much the character in a story would like the masculine or feminine toys and the younger children relied purely on the sex of the character but the older took into account both the sex of the character and their stated likes and dislikes. This evidence supports the theory because it shows that younger children are aware of the basic differences between boys and girls.

Quiz- True or false? 1.Gender schema theory was developed as a response to Kohlberg's theory. 2.Gender schema develops at the age of 5. 3.There are two types of schema- “in group out group schema” and “own-sex schema”. 4.Gender schema helps children make sense of the world around them. 5.Martin, Eisenbud & Ross found that girls would play with the toys that were meant for boys.