This document discusses the question of gender in youth development programs, those structured activities and opportunities sponsored by organizations other than schools and offered outside of school hours. Many of these organizations offer programs for people of all ages but the clear focus of this paper is early adolescence, about ages 10 to 15. The discussion is organized by several questions and assumes that planners of youth development programs are interested both in promoting what helps early adolescents to develop into self assured individuals who contribute to the society and in assuring that this process benefits all the potential young participant whatever their sex, color, nationality, culture or income. The questions are: (1) How similar or different are girls and boys at early adolescence? (2) How have issues of gender been addressed in youth organizations, past and present? (3) What gender issues affect the informal education and enrichment offered by youth development programs? (4) What are the implications of the current understanding of the effects of gender for planners of youth development programs? (5) What difference does it make whether youth development programs are offered in mixed-sex or single-sex settings? and (6) What are the priorities for research in understanding the significance of gender in youth development programs? Because people tend to treat youth as an undifferentiated, often middle class white male, mass, much more research is needed on the interaction of racial, ethnic, economic background and community variables with age and gender among early adolescents. (DK)