Done with Gender: Reinforcing and Reproducing Gender Stereotypes and Positions in Early Childhood Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58955/jecer.160956Keywords:
gender-sensitive education, ECEC, gendered play and coloursAbstract
In recent decades, gender issues have received much attention in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland. Gender equality and gender-sensitive education are explicitly mentioned as goals in the national ECEC curriculum. According to the national core curriculum, the staff should be aware of gender issues, actively promote a gender-sensitive environment, and actively strive to treat children equally and equitably. The aim of this study was to investigate how ECEC staff understand and implement gender-sensitive education. It was part of a large multi-sited ethnographic study conducted in ECEC centres. Participatory observations were made of the interactions between staff and children, and among the children, for one month in 18 ECEC centres. In addition, 74 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the ECEC staff. The findings indicate that, despite occasionally questioning the status quo, the staff continued to reinforce and reproduce stereotypical gender divisions, for example by dividing children into girl-pairs and boy-pairs during daily activities. By not intervening when children exclude each other from play, the staff are communicating that excluding someone based on gender identification is acceptable.
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