Today, in connection with the implementation of a personality-oriented educational paradigm, the problem of differentiating education at all levels of education has intensified. The history of the development of physical education has many years of its practical implementation, but at the present stage it requires new knowledge, where exactly the gender approach acts as a progressive impetus for the entry of Ukrainian education into international standards. The present pushes us to the fact that the gender approach in education acts as an opportunity to expand the horizons of life, individual abilities and inclinations of each individual. The relevance of the topic is determined and substantiated, the data of domestic and foreign authors on the historical prerequisites for the formation of a gender approach in education are analyzed and summarized. It was found that the factors influencing the priorities of using the gender approach in education are controversial issues of the predominance of two paradigms: sociocultural and sociobiological, which convincingly proves the need to attract new knowledge in the field of physical education.