Gender Identity, And Lawrence Kohlberg's Theory Of Gender Development

Gender identity refers to self-identification, whether an individual identifies themselves as either male or female. Gender identity is not always congruent with biological sex, which refers to anatomy including chromosomes, sex organs and hormones, whereas gender identity refers to the psychological characteristics which as associated with a gender. Gender role refers to the expectations society holds for behaviours which are deemed normal or appropriate for a gender. There are many theories as to how an individual comes to acquire their gender role and identity, many believe that these theories are not mutually exclusive, but rather work in conjunction with one another.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1966) theory of gender development came from Piaget’s

This stage is achieved when the child realises that it will remain the same gender throughout its life. However a child at this stage can still be deceived by appearances. Sandra Bem (1959) studied just how much a child can be deceived by appearances. She conducted an experiment on children between three and five years of age, children at these ages would have been either in the stage of ‘basic gender identity’ or the ‘gender stability’ stage. She showed these children a series of photographs of young children without clothes on the lower parts of their bodies, however on their torso they wore clothing typically associated with the opposite sex. These pictures were shown with the consent of the parents of both the children pictured and the children participating in this test. It was found that 60% of children were uncertain of the gender of the children pictured, suggesting that they were still in Kohlberg’s first stage of gender development, ‘basic gender identity’ and could be deceived by

The theory of gender schema was introduced by Carol Martin and Charles Halverson in 1981. Martin and Halverson drew upon Kohlberg’s theory but disagreed with his stage theories, they believed children acquired an understanding of gender before the age gender consistency is achieved as predicted by Kohlberg. According to Martin and Halverson a gender schema begins to form once a child begins to recognize that there is a difference between males and females. Schema refers to a mental framework that assists an individual to organize or interpret information from their experiences. In regards to gender, a schema is an organized set of beliefs about typical gender behavior. The gender schema theory begins to develop once the child knows its own gender and can distinguish the difference between males and females. A child begins to notice differences between males and females at around 2-3 years of age, at this stage a child will begin to notice their own gender and can label and differentiate between the two. At this stage the child will actively seek out information relating to their gender, by paying close attention to models of the same sex. In 1993 Martin and Halvorson conducted an experiment with males and females between 5 and 6 years of age. The children were shown pictures of males and females participating in activities that were either consistent