![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
Using ethnographic data from 10 months of observations in nine preschool classrooms, I examine gendered sexual socialization children receive from teachers’ practices and reproduce through peer interactions. I find heteronormativity permeates preschool classrooms, where teachers construct (and occasionally disrupt) gendered sexuality in a number of different ways, and children reproduce (and sometimes resist) these identities and norms in their daily play. Teachers use what I call facilitative, restrictive, disruptive, and passive approaches to sexual socialization in preschool classrooms. Teachers’ approaches to gendered sexual socialization varied across preschools observed and affected teachers’ response to children’s behaviors, such as heterosexual romantic play (kissing and relationships), bodily displays, and consent. Additionally, my data suggest young children are learning in preschool that boys have gendered power over girls’ bodies. I find that before children have salient sexual identities of their own, children are beginning to make sense of heteronormativity and rules associated with sexuality through interactions with their teachers and peers in preschool.
Keywords sexuality, gender, preschool, childhood, ethnography
References
Section:
| Anyon, Jean. 1980. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Journal of Education 162:67–92. Google Scholar, Abstract | |
| Best, Raphaela. 1983. We’ve All Got Scars: What Boys and Girls Learn in Elementary School. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Blaise, Mindy. 2005. “A Feminist Poststructuralist Study of Children ‘Doing’ Gender in an Urban Kindergarten Classroom.” Childhood Research Quarterly 20(1):85–108. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Bourdieu, Pierre. 2001. Masculine Domination. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Google Scholar | |
| Bowles, Samuel, Gintis, Herbert. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist America. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar | |
| Butler, Judith P. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Carere, Sharon. 1987. “Lifeworld of Restricted Behavior.” Sociological Studies of Child Development 2:105–38. Google Scholar | |
| Cassidy, Deborah J., Lower, Joanna K., Kintner-Duffy, Victoria L., Hegde, Archana V., Shim, Jonghee. 2011. “The Day-to-day Reality of Teacher Turnover in Preschool Classrooms: An Analysis of Classroom Context and Teacher, Director, and Parent Perspectives.” Journal of Research in Childhood Education 25(1):1–23. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Cohen, Cathy. 1997. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3:437–65. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
| Davies, Bronwyn. 2003. Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales: Preschool Children and Gender. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Google Scholar | |
| Eder, Donna, Evans, Catherine Colleen, Parker, Stephen. 1995. School Talk: Gender and Adolescent Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Eder, Donna, Parker, Stephen. 1987. “The Cultural Production and Reproduction of Gender: The Effect of Extracurricular Activities on Peer-group Culture.” Sociology of Education 60:200–13. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Emerson, Robert M., Fretz, Rachel I., Shaw, Laura L. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Epstein, Debbie, Johnson, Richard. 1998. Schooling Sexualities. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. Google Scholar | |
| Gansen, Heidi M. 2017. “Researcher Positionality in Participant Observation with Preschool Age Children: Challenges and Strategies for Establishing Rapport with Teachers and Children Simultaneously.” Pp. 81–102 in Researching Children and Youth: Methodological Issues, Strategies, and Innovations (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, vol. 22), edited by Castro, I. E., Swauger, M., Harger, B. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Garcia, Lorena. 2009. “‘Now Why Do You Want to Know about That?’ Heteronormativity, Sexism, and Racism in the Sexual (Mis)Education of Latina Youth.” Gender & Society 23(4):520–41. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Gilliam, Walter S. 2005. Prekindergarteners left behind: Expulsion rates in state prekindergarten systems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Child Study Center. Google Scholar | |
| Gilliam, Walter S., Shahar, Golan. 2006. “Preschool and Child Care Expulsion and Suspension: Rates and Predictors in One State.” Infants & Young Children 19(3):228–45. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Giroux, Henry, Purpel, David. 1983. The Hidden Curriculum and Moral Education. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan. Google Scholar | |
| Glaser, Barney, Strauss, Anselm. 1999. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Transaction. Google Scholar | |
| Hallett, Tim. 2007. “Between Difference and Distinction: Interaction Ritual through Symbolic Power in an Educational Institution.” Social Psychology Quarterly 70(2):148–71. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Herzfeldt-Kamprath, Rachel, Ullrich, Rebecca. 2016. Examining Teacher Effectiveness between Preschool and Third Grade. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Google Scholar | |
| Ingraham, Chrys. 1994. “The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender.” Sociological Theory 12(2):203–19. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Jackson, Philip W. 1968. Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Google Scholar | |
| Jackson, Stevi. 2006. “Gender, Sexuality and Heterosexuality: The Complexity (and Limits) of Heteronormativity.” Feminist Theory 7(1):105–21. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals | |
| Kehily, Mary Jane, Nayak, Anoop. 1997. “‘Lads and Laughter’: Humour and the Production of Heterosexual Masculinities.” Gender and Education 9(1):69–87. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Lareau, Annette. 2000. Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Google Scholar | |
| Lewis, Amanda, Diamond, John. 2015. Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
| MacNaughton, Glenda. 2000. Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Google Scholar | |
| Mandell, Nancy. 1988. “The Least-adult Role in Studying Children.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 16(4):433–67. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Martin, Karin A. 1998. “Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools.” American Sociological Review 25(4):123–222. Google Scholar | |
| Martin, Karin A. 2009. “Normalizing Heterosexuality: Mothers’ Assumptions, Talk, and Strategies with Young Children.” American Sociological Review 74(2):190–207. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Martin, Karin A. 2014. “Making Sense of Children’s Sexual Behavior in Child Care: An Analysis of Adult Responses in Special Investigation Reports.” Child Abuse & Neglect 38(10):1636–46. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Martin, Karin A., Bobier, Lacey. 2017. “Preschool Sexuality Education?!” Pp. 243–60 in The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education, edited by Allen, L., Rasmussen, M. L. London: Palgrave. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Martin, Karin A., Kazyak, Emily. 2009. “Hetero-romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children’s G-rated Films.” Gender & Society 23(3):315–36. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Martin, Karin A., Luke, Katherine P. 2010. “Gender Differences in the ABC’s of the Birds and the Bees: What Mothers Teach Young Children about Sexuality and Reproduction.” Sex Roles 62(3–4): 278–91. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Myers, Kristen, Raymond, Laura. 2010. “Elementary School Girls and Heteronormativity: The Girl Project.” Gender & Society 24(2):167–88. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Neilson, Joyce M., Walden, Glenda, Kunkel, Charlotte A. 2000. “Gendered Heteronormativity: Empirical Illustrations in Everyday Life.” Sociological Quarterly 41(2):283–96. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Pascoe, C. J. 2007. Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar | |
| Renold, Emma. 2000. “‘Coming Out’: Gender, (Hetero)Sexuality and the Primary School.” Gender and Education 12(3):309–26. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Renold, Emma. 2002. “Presumed Innocence: (Hetero)sexual, Heterosexist and Homophobic Harassment among Primary School Girls and Boys.” Childhood 9(4):415–34. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Renold, Emma. 2005. Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children’s Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School. New York: Routledge Falmer. Google Scholar | |
| Rich, Adrienne. 1980. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5(4):631–60. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Robinson, Kerry. 2013. Innocence, Knowledge, and the Construction of Children: The Contradictory Nature of Sexuality and Censorship in Children’s Contemporary Lives. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Rubin, Gayle. 1984. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Pp. 143–78 in Pleasure and Danger, edited by Vance, C. Boston: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
| Streib, Jessi. 2011. “Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds.” Qualitative Sociology 34(2):337–52. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Thorne, Barrie. 1993. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Laughlin, Lynda. 2013. Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2011. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov Google Scholar | |
| Van Ausdale, Debra, Feagin, Joe R. 1996. “Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts: The Critical Case of Very Young Children.” American Sociological Review 61(5):779–93. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Wasburn, Philo C. 1986. “The Political Role of the American School.” Theory and Research in Social Education 14:51–65. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| West, Candace, Zimmerman, Don. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1(2):125–51. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Wilkinson, Lindsey, Pearson, Jennifer. 2009. “School Culture and the Well-being of Same-sex Attracted Youth.” Gender & Society 23(4):542–68. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI |
