This sourcebook provides a comprehensive volume addressing the critical issues in the study of gender, emotion socialization, and the development of emotional competence. Each of the chapters provides evidence for the pervasive role that gender plays in emotional development and provides a framework to better understand the development of emotion in boys and girls. These include:

1. The Role of Gender in the Socialization of Emotion: Key Concepts and Critical Issues
2. Gender Differences in Caregiver Emotion Socialization of Low-Income Toddlers
3. Gender and Parents' Reactions to Children's Emotion During the Preschool Years
4. Parent-Child Discussions of Anger and Sadness: The Importance of Parent and Child Gender During Middle Childhood
5. Emotion Socialization in Adolescence: The Roles of Mothers and Fathers
6. Socialization of Emotion: Who Influences Whom and How?

As these chapters demonstrate, gender impacts growth in a multitude of developmental domains, including the development of emotion and emotional competence. although emotions are, in part, biological, the means of emotions and appropriateness of emotional expression are socialized. In the early years of life, socialization primarily takes place via interactions within the family, and characteristics of both parents and children may affect the process of emotion socialization. Gender is one critically important moderator of what and how children learn about emotion because culture determines the appropriateness of emotional displays for males and females.

This is the 128th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. The mission of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development is to provide scientific and scholarly presentations on cutting edge issues and concepts in the field of child and adolescent development. Each volume focuses on a specific "new direction" or research topic, and is edited by an expert or experts on that topic.