This special issue examines gender construction by children in some of its rich cultural and contextual complexity and in some of its interactions with power. The first two articles are about preschool children's language. One examines preschoolers' socialization into Japanese--a language in which gender marking is inescapable, and the other compares Mandarin-speaking preschoolers' language in Mainland China with that of English-speaking preschoolers in the United States. Dealing with middle-school aged children, the next two articles deal with the influence of expertise and examine talk within a mixed-sex group of Latino children doing groupwork. The issue concludes with an epilogue commenting on the special issue and critically examining the problem of gender indexing.