Gender

The term gender is commonly used to describe the socially constructed roles that men and women inhabit in society. Gender is an important lens for understanding children’s identities and experiences in everyday life, with implications for what it means to be a girl or be a boy. Conceptualizations of gender have changed over time, and different theoretical frameworks define and construct its meaning in different ways. The way in which gender is defined and conceptualized is not neutral but contributes to constructing, normalizing, and investing with values different ways of thinking about gender.

Gender is important not only for considering the gendering of children but childhood itself can be thought of as gendered too (e.g., if children are seen as dependent and intertwined with women’s lives). ...