Gender Identity in Middle Childhood

The trajectories of development of gender identity are different in boys as compared to girls in their middle childhood. While boys’ identification with “masculine” characteristics strengthens, girls are more “androgynous” and their identification with “feminine” role reduces.^{1, 2} This is evident in the activities that they pursue. Boys adhere to “masculine” pursuits and girls are more open to exploring sports and science projects that are otherwise stereotyped for boys.^{1, 3} Society regards males’ activities as higher in status. The awareness of school-going children about these societal perceptions contributes to these changes noticed in their development.^{1, 4} While younger children make vertical inferences based on gender “label” (“boys” like trucks), horizontal associations start to appear in middle childhood (eg, associating trucks with being “masculine”).^{4, 5} The intergroup biases reduce in elementary school-age with increasing stereotype flexibility. Literature suggests that young children may not understand within-sex individual differences. ⁴

The essential factors that influence the psychological well-being of children as their gender identity evolves include gender typicality, gender contentedness, and felt pressure to conform to gender roles. While gender typicality refers to the degree to which an individual feels similar to others of the same gender, gender contentedness is the degree to which one feels comfortable with his or her gender assignment. The degree to which a child feels that his/her family and peers disapprove of his/her gender-related traits determines the felt pressure to conform to gender roles. Gender-typical and gender-contended children have high self-esteem, while gender-atypical and gender-uncontended children have low self-esteem. It is further affected negatively if one experiences intense pressure to conform to gender roles. ⁶ Studies suggest that there may be sibling influences on gender development in middle childhood. ⁷

Figure 1 illustrates the gender identity in middle childhood encompassing gender typicality, gender contentedness, and felt pressure to conform to gender roles. School children make social comparisons. Both cognitive and social factors influence the development of gender identity. The diverging paths in Figure 2 represent the diverging gender identity trajectories in boys and girls in their middle childhood. While the paths are also symbolic of the cognitive factors, the greenery alongside the roads symbolizes the social forces influencing the trajectories of development.

Figure 1.

Gender Identity in Middle Childhood

Figure 2.

Diverging Paths in Middle Childhood