Why Developmental Research on Social Categorization Needs Intersectionality

Children develop rich concepts of social categories based on gender, race, and other social dimensions throughout early and middle childhood. However, less is known about the development of representations at the intersection of multiple categories. This is a critical issue because overlooking how children integrate information about multiple category identities causes a major gap in our understanding of the development of social cognition. To address this issue, we suggest researchers adopt an intersectional framework. By intersectional framework, we mean consideration of both how power structures contribute to systems of inequality as well as variability in how group-based bias is expressed towards people with one vs. multiple minoritized identities. Using research on children’s use of race and gender, we describe how our current understanding of social categorization is incomplete, and how an intersectional framework can advance both equity and theory.