Questions regarding gender roles, behavior, and expectations tend to be situated in the nurture versus nature debate. Scholarship is unsettled as to the ways in which genes, biology, and psychosocial experience interact to shape gender differences. However, most science scholarship focuses on the role of the social environment, with gender conceptualized as a social construct composed of roles, behaviors, and expectations rather than being biologically innate. This entry defines and explains socialization and gender socialization. It then examines the agents of socialization – family, education, peers, and media – as sites of gender socialization.

This entry defines and differentiates sex and gender, followed by gender roles as understood within the social sciences. The sociological perspectives of gender roles are outlined. Specifically gender roles are examined within structural functionalist, symbolic interactionist, social role theory, conflict theory, and feminist theory frameworks. Further, the dominant breadwinner–homemaker family model and narrative is considered, with a focus on changing gender roles and their relationship to culture and history.

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