The gender understanding of Swedish children.

Due to variation across cultures in children's access to information about the nature of gender, there may be cross-cultural differences in the development of children's gender understanding. However, that development has previously been studied in American children exclusively. This paper reports a study of the gender understanding of children aged 4 to 8 in Sweden, where access to gender information is greater than in the United States. The Swedish children were found to be advanced relative to the previously-studied American children both in development of understanding of genital differences and in development of understanding of the genital basis of gender. Sex differences and referent effects are discussed.