Practising gender: Children's relationships and the development of gendered behaviour and beliefs

Gender, as a topic of study in psychology, can sometimes be treated as a messy inconvenience for researchers who would rather focus on illuminating universal laws of human behaviour.Developmentalists have been no less guilty of this approach than many others. Yet, gender is a topic thatwill not go away, and it will not disappear because it is a ubiquitous and fundamental part of any child’s development. As such, it is hard to imagine how a child can ever develop without gender influencing her behaviour, thinking, or social relationships. Therefore, developmental psychologists should be interested in gender because research demonstrates that from a young age children react to their own and others’ gender and think about gender in complex, subtle, and nuanced ways. By understanding how gender links with relationships across development, we can also come to understand and possibly begin to address an enduring source of inequality in adult social relationships and roles. This Special Issue explores how gender influences children’s and adolescents’ behaviour, communication, and thinking across contexts