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This book explores the contexts for gender identity development in early childhood education, examining how early childhood educators' views on children's gender identity influence their practice in Australia. The author utilizes feminist post-structuralism, queer theory and performativity as theoretical approaches, and feminist post-structuralist discourse and thematic analyses. The book captures the voices of educators and developers of curriculum documents to explore how gender expansive environments can be created when such environments are socially and politically contentious. It then identifies discourses that enable and constrain the building of pro-diversity spaces and contexts in early childhood education, while considering how to disrupt normative notions of gender and promote the deployment of discursive agency.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Gender in the Early Years.- Chapter 2. A Deep Dive on Gender.- Chapter 3. Where Does Policy Come From?.- Chapter 4.The Early Childhood Educators' Contexts.- Chapter 5. The Educators' Stories.- Chapter 6. Discourses Constraining and Enabling Work on Gender.- Chapter 7. Conclusions and Implications
About the author
Rachel Chapman is an experienced academic in early childhood education at Melbourne Polytechnic in Melbourne, Australia. She earned a PhD in Education from RMIT University. Her research areas include early childhood education, gender, diversity, inclusion, policy and teacher practice, and she has extensive experience in curriculum design. She is a board member of Social Justice in Early Childhood.
