‘What’s he doing that for? He’s a boy!’: Exploring gender and sexualities in an early childhood setting

Abstract

In young children’s worlds, gender and sexualities are constantly policed. Who children play with, where they play and how they play are often subject to regulation by others to perpetuate ‘normativity’. This colloquium draws on ‘telling examples’ from an in-progress study in an early childhood education setting in Aotearoa New Zealand. Examples of challenge and resistance show several children actively constructing and performing their gender in flexible and multiple ways, some of which contest/resist traditional and cultural norms and dominant discourses. The central argument is that ‘doing gender’ in relationship with others is complex work for children that can be better understood through the constructs of ‘performativity’ and ‘working theories’ jointly.

Introduction

The focus of this article is on how the gender and sexualities of 3- and 4-year-olds were constructed and performed within an early childhood setting in New Zealand. It uses data from my ongoing doctoral research project, which sought to find out about the children’s ‘working theories’ – knowledge, skills and attitudes related to diversity and difference – and to consider the role of teachers in this process. ‘Working theories’ are described in Te Whāriki, the Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) curriculum, as one of its two key learning outcomes, the second being dispositions (New Zealand Ministry of Education (MoE), 1996). The curriculum describes how

knowledge, skills and attitudes are closely linked … and combine together to form a child’s ‘working theory’ and help the child develop dispositions that encourage learning … children are developing more elaborate and useful working theories about themselves and about the people in their lives. (p. 44)

A small number of researchers have been exploring children’s working theories in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past 5 years and are publishing prolifically about them (see, for example, Hedges, 2011; Peters and Davis, 2011 for some seminal works). Yet to date, there is no record of children theorising specifically about gender and sexualities. This has led to my attempt to fill this research gap as early childhood is a formative time in their lives when young children’s working theories about themselves and others are being developed.

The study was set in a not-for-profit, suburban ECE setting in Aotearoa New Zealand. The setting has a roll of 40 children: 20 boys and 20 girls aged 3–5 years and is staffed by four qualified teachers and an administrator (all female). Children attend each week-day morning with half the group staying on in the afternoon until the end of the school day. Over a 6-month period, I collected data as a ‘participant-observer’ in the setting, with the teachers, children (for whom pseudonyms are used herein) and their families.

Theoretical framings

Three key concepts frame this discussion and are briefly outlined here to set the scene: working theories, dominant discourses and performativity.

First, ECE settings are microcosms of society where children learn about living life with, and alongside, others. As such, they have the potential to transform social relations in the wider world. A high percentage of young children attend ECE settings, and from a very young age, they can be seen to be theorising about the social world and developing their identities and subjectivities. Hedges (2011) suggests that working theories are

… ways children process intuitive, everyday, spontaneous knowledge, use this to interpret new information, and think, reason and problem solve in wider contexts … The word ‘working’ suggests that these theories are tentative and speculative … children employ working theories to make sense of new experiences during their ongoing inquiries into their everyday lives and worlds. (p. 284)

Adults may gain insight into children’s working theories through watching and listening to them during their play and in dialogue with them. As young children process everyday knowledge, they can be assisted by skilled teachers to revise or extend their working theories.

Learning about gender and sexualities is fundamental to young children’s developing sense of who they are as individuals and in relation to others. Robinson and Davies (2014) argue that gender is the framework in which children view their futures and who they are as sexual subjects. Along with Blaise and Taylor (2012) and other feminist, poststructuralist and queer thinkers, they see gender and sexualities through a lens focused on discourses and the power of language. They recognise gender and sexualities as non-normative, fluid and potentially changeable rather than knowable, fixed and stable.

Second, dominant discourses prevail particularly in relation to the construction of gender. Blaise (2014) highlights that ‘how these discourses are made visible in children’s play depends upon the theoretical framings used to understand gender, sex and sexuality’ (p. 115). Various theories are common within people’s understandings of gender: biological determinism (nature), environmental discourses (nurture), socialisation alongside discourses of dominant/hegemonic masculinity and subordinate femininity. These theories that make up discourses are imbued with power. They influence how adults, teachers and young children engage, understand and interpret particular experiences and what happens in play/life.

The discourse of heteronormativity – the presumption that everyone is heterosexual – is another dominant discourse that has a powerful influence on people’s lives. The narrow ways in which gender and sexualities are seen can be related to adult blindness to, or children’s lack of awareness of, other ways of being. In lisahunter et al. (2015), we discuss heteronormativity and relate it to normativity described as ‘a set of ideas, attitudes, biases and discriminations that can shape the way people think, speak and act and serve to “other” those marginalised or alienated by the normalised or dominant identities, positionings and practices’ (p. 207). Teachers and other adults can limit children’s agency, and their ways of being, by saying and doing things (and by their silences), and these actions perpetuate normativity.

Third is Butler’s (1990/1999, 2004) notion of performativity – that is, that gender and how children (and adults) ‘do gender’ is a performance that is socially and culturally constructed, and mediated by others. The gender, sexual and cultural identities of children are less about who they are, as about what they do on an ongoing basis. Multiple identities can be performed, and each makes up the whole child/person. Who children are and how they perform who they are, that is, what they do, are also fashioned through the power of what is acceptable, desirable and rewarded (Blaise and Taylor, 2012). The world at large including popular culture sends powerful messages to young children.

Gunn and MacNaughton (2007) identify that children do gender in a myriad of ways and that these performances can change at a moment’s notice given the circumstances, context or other players. Gunn (2010) spells out how, despite our biological sex,

we can all be a mix of feminine, masculine or anywhere in between because we express our gender via subject positions available to us, and the discourses we access with different people at different times (Weedon, 2007) – so there is no single and fixed way to be properly masculine and feminine. (p. 12)

I argue that supporting children’s working theories in this complex domain can be problematic if teachers, parents and children themselves do not have an understanding of the contextual influences and various fluid possibilities of doing gender.

Despite gender being framed as ‘a construct that can be done, redone and undone’ (Lee-Thomas et al., 2005: 25), in dramatic play and real life children come up against gender binaries – boy/girl, tomboy/girly-girl, jock/wimp, gay/straight, cis/trans according to Ervin (2014: 2). In ECE settings, certain ways of being, doing and saying become ‘truths’ and are reinforced by peers, teachers and even absent parents and siblings. Normativity prevails despite Te Whāriki, the early childhood curriculum, stating that ‘children [will] develop respect for children who are different from themselves and ease of interaction with them’ (MoE, 1996: 66). These truths or normal ways of ‘being’ have much power and are often assumed or taken for granted.

Findings and discussion

Three specific ‘telling examples’ relating to Jack are presented here to show the trajectory of his working theories over time and space/place. The ‘telling examples’ are drawn from my research case studies developed around various children identified as having ongoing working theories around gender and sexualities. These examples are followed by commentaries made up of interpretations/framings from my theoretical vantage point. These commentaries are intended to guide readers by signposting key ideas and possible readings of the data.

Example 1: Jack, leader of the Speedway gang, and reinforcing gender binaries

Jack was 4 years 3 months old when I met him. He and eight male peers had recently visited a car racing track – ‘speedway’ and done a lap of the track in a ‘monster’ truck. Led by a teacher who owned and co-piloted a racing car with her husband, the trip reinforced Jack’s prior knowledge of speedway. His expert status made him the leader of the gang who re-enacted speedway daily in the ECE setting’s sandpit.

Yet Jack was adamant that girls couldn’t ‘do speedway’. This view persisted despite the teacher having shown them her car racing suit and other artefacts related to her hobby. Another teacher, formerly a stranger to the sandpit, deliberately became a regular player alongside Jack and the gang after she heard Jack’s sexist assertion. Rather than directly challenging Jack’s stereotype about speedway being ‘only for boys’, she waited to hear what else he might say. She quickly learnt the rules, and jargon and her presence seemingly gave girls the permission and confidence to join in.

Jack came to revise his opinion that ‘girls can’t play speedway’. ‘I n’used to think that, but that was when I was four’ he told teachers as he neared age five and became one of the ‘big kids’.

Jack’s notable shift from narrow gender stereotyping to an inclusive stance that anyone could ‘do speedway’ was celebrated by his teachers and documented in a comprehensive Learning Story.

In Example 1 , Jack’s assertion that speedway was not for girls could be seen as a working theory. This theory was possibly reinforced by two events: first, a previous trip to the speedway with his Dad and older brother and, second, the gendered nature of the boys-only trip with eight male peers. Jack’s initial perspective typifies how rooted stereotypes are in children’s understandings of gender. He can be seen to be drawing on discourses of dominant masculinity and subordinate femininity. Were Jack’s views reinforced by what he observed in his attendant context – the ECE setting environment and beyond – I wonder?

From my observations, the sandpit was a ‘boys-only’ space. Few girls ventured near the noisy, boisterous Speedway Gang. They mostly appeared preoccupied with babies and the popular movie Frozen. It is possible that Jack, in his leadership role or with his male peers, surreptitiously policed or regulated who played in the sandpit. From my perspective, Jack was distinguishing between what was appropriate for boys and girls based on the discourses he had access to (Blaise and Taylor, 2012). It makes me think about the significance of his family life – no female siblings, a mother who worked in an executive role and a stay-at-home dad.

Jack’s working theory/stereotype was likely challenged because unlike the first teacher who co-piloted racing cars and took the boys to the speedway, the second teacher actively engaged in their sandpit play talking speedway language with the gang on a daily basis. Seemingly, her presence provided Jack with access to a counter discourse, one that challenged the demarcation line between boys and girls in his play space. The celebratory tone of his Learning Story (Carr and Lee, 2012) attesting to the shift in Jack’s working theory (ongoing inquiry into gender) could also be seen to have reified Jack’s learning, making it concrete, visible and valuing it.

The actions of the two teachers could be seen as inconsistent. I wonder whether they recognised their contradictory pedagogies. Despite her ‘non-traditional’ racing interest, the first teacher could be seen to be reinforcing gendered roles and stereotypes. She grouped boys together for the ‘one-off’ speedway trip, reinforcing cars, trucks and racing as traditional boys’ interests. As only boys went to the speedway, her actions could be seen as contrary to the curriculum expectation in Te Whāriki that ‘children experience an environment where there are equitable opportunities for learning irrespective of gender, ability, age, ethnicity or background’ (MoE, 1996: 66). I suggest that had girls been taken along to explore this non-traditional girls’ interest, they too would have been fascinated, especially with support, encouragement and modelling from a female teacher with expertise in this field.

Meanwhile, the second teacher could be seen to be challenging gender stereotypes and promoting gender equity with all of the children – girls and boys. Through her presence and engagement in the sandpit on an ongoing basis, and girls joining her, she could be seen to be modelling that this area was not gender-marked as ‘boys-only’ territory. From her perspective, anyone could share in the re-enactment of speedway with its artefacts and jargon. However, her ‘wait and see’ attitude was passive rather than deliberate in terms of hijacking or interrupting Jack’s working theory (Peters and Davis, 2011) about girls not being able to ‘do speedway’. This inaction could be viewed as at odds with the stated expectation in Te Whāriki that teachers support children to ‘develop positive judgements on their own gender and the opposite gender’ (MoE, 1996: 66).

Example 2: Jack, the masculinity enforcement officer, and gender diversity (3 months later)

Today I observed Felix (aged nearly four years old) dressed in an elaborate, floor-length, flowing gown. He was standing still while a teacher plaited the electric blue wig he was wearing. Jack (aged four and a half year) entered the building. He stopped on seeing Felix and exclaimed loudly, ‘What’s he doing that for? He’s a boy!’

Later in the day, I observed Felix admiring the butterfly wings he was wearing in the bathroom mirror. Sandeep, who was alongside him, held one of the butterfly wings outstretched in her hand. She looked at Felix quizzically as she turned and emphatically stated to me ‘Me girl! Him boy! Him boy!’

In Example 2 , Jack, and possibly Sandeep, appeared to be drawing on working theories about what masculinity or being a boy means, suggesting that there is a ‘right’ or ‘correct’ way to do gender and that Felix had got his boy performance ‘wrong’. From my vantage point, Jack was censoring Felix with his surprised tone, question and assertion of Felix’s biological sex. Jack was likely drawing on discourses of dominant masculinity and subservient femininity as he policed or tried to regulate/control how his peer, a biological male, performed his gender. Conversely, Felix could be seen to be resisting any kind of ‘narrow’ or ‘rigid’ gender policing or censorship. Surprisingly, from my perspective, Jack’s loud public criticism of Felix passed without comment from the hairdresser/teacher or anyone else in the vicinity. Unsurprisingly, in my view, Felix did not respond in this instance.

Later, during a formal recorded discussion, I relayed these events to the teachers. They informed me that Felix had dressed this way on other occasions including wanting a hair plait ‘on the side’. One teacher posited that this hairstyle was copied from Elsa, the heroine of Frozen, a contemporary movie popular with some children. Another teacher noted that ‘nobody ever said anything – no one stops in their tracks, it is just Felix!’ She was emphatic that his behaviour had become normalised in the ECE setting, and the other teachers agreed. However, these assertions were contrary to the challenges from children that I witnessed and described. Was this gender blindness on the part of the teachers? The hairdresser/teacher suggested that we ‘keep listening’ in response to my expressed concern about Jack’s comment about Felix. Hence, my interpretation of this incident, particularly Jack’s attitude towards Felix, appears not to have been shared by the teaching team.

From my positioning, I constructed this episode as an example of a child crossing traditional boundaries. On my next visit, I shared a reading by MacNaughton (1999) where she identifies that ‘children may avoid crossing gender boundaries because of the possible consequences of peer rejection, peer aggression and loneliness’ (p. 91). Raising the possibility of risks for young children associated with doing gender differently, I posited that they (teachers) should actively work to minimise these risks. I argued that they needed to be alert and proactive about supporting young children who may potentially be at risk from their peers or adults because their non-normative performances of gender are not supported. There is a broader issue here too, in my view, about children being supported to develop positive judgements of themselves and others and learning to challenge unfairness and injustice (MoE, 1996). These are important working theories to extend in the humanitarian interests of an inclusive society.

Meanwhile, Felix’s actions in Example 2 suggest that he possibly had access to other discourses beyond the dominant ones available to Jack. Was Felix complying with or contesting dominant discourses, or doing both? Seemingly, the answer to this question is dependent on how Felix sees himself and whether his understandings and gender performances are limited by traditional narrow gender binaries. While there is increasing recognition of ‘gender diversity’ or ‘gender fluidity’ in the academic literature (see, for example, Robinson, 2014), social recognition and acceptance of gender-diverse children lag far behind. I suspect that this is because children are positioned as naïve, innocent and too young to know (yet), especially in ECE settings. Or maybe, as I suspect, teachers and parents subscribe to the view that children will outgrow such performances once they start school where there is not the same licence to explore and be creative with their identities as there is in ECE settings.

Example 3: Jack the ‘real’ boy co-parents the child he ‘growed’ and gender fluidity (a further 3 months later)

Today I photographed Jack and his peer Lucas ministering to a doll in a highchair with a cloth and a spoon. Later, at my request a teacher showed Jack the photograph and interviewed him informally about what they were doing. His narrative went something like this:

he (Jack) was the two year old baby’s dad and Lucas was his mother, but he (Jack) had ‘growed’ the baby named Jackson and had him at the hospital. Jack identified that Lucas had dressed Jackson (the baby) but that Jack changed his nappies, the ‘poo ones’. Jack was feeding the baby and together they take him for walks around the mountain.

Jack identified that he and Lucas often played this game, despite none of the teachers ever noticing before. And he reiterated that even though he ‘growed’ the baby, Lucas was the ‘mum’. In response to direct questioning Jack stated that he was always the dad and Lucas was always the mum.

I was initially surprised by Jack’s explanation of the photograph of him playing ‘family’ discussed in Example 3 . Prior to Example 3 , it was clear to me from nearly 6 months of observations that Jack performed as a ‘real’ boy, despite the shift in his thinking about girls and racing cars. Up until this point, I had observed Jack in dominant masculine roles. He played ‘boy games’; sat at what was identified by children as the ‘boys’ lunch table’; danced to popular music except obvious ‘girls songs’; comfortably wore face paint except when someone accidentally called it ‘make-up’; avoided toe and finger nail painting sessions involving girls and the occasional boy; and played dramatic roles confined to animals, monsters or spectators.

Examples 1 and 2 left me wondering whether, despite their young age, Jack and his peers had already arrived at fixed knowledge and attitudes about gender and sexuality norms. These attitudes and behaviours were being learned and reinforced within and beyond the ECE setting in my view.

Or were their inquiries ongoing and hence their working theories still developing?

Yet, Jack’s rich description in Example 3 points to him being able to envisage a scenario where the roles taken up by him and his male peer extend beyond traditional, gendered and normative ways of being. Here was evidence in his words of two boys doing gender differently. In the scenario he described, Jack had given birth to a child at the hospital who he was now co-parenting (in the father role) with one of his speedway gang peers. Lucas was seemingly compliant in his role as mother (that I posit Jack assigned him) despite being a boy.

Revisiting the narrative in Example 3 and my initial interpretations, I recognise some non-gender-stereotypical actions on Jack’s behalf in his role as baby Jackson’s father in their dramatic play scenario. Nevertheless, dominant gender and sexualities discourses are still to the fore. Despite Jack’s assertion that he ‘growed’ baby Jackson and ‘had him at the hospital’, he is still suggesting that Lucas is baby Jackson’s mother and he is the father. This second reading highlighted the traditional, stereotypical family of mother, father and a child reproduced in their play despite the biological sex of the actors. As there was no hint of two dads and a baby being a possible family, we assume that Jack was constrained by the discourse of heteronormativity (Kelly, 2012).

Concluding comments

Throughout the various ‘telling examples’ of Jack’s story, we see him and his peers ‘actively involved in constructing, understanding and negotiating power and identity’ (Arthur et al., 2015: 81). Despite evidence of policing and regulation, children’s diverse working theories related to their performances and understandings of gender and sexualities are evident. These children are making sense of their world, especially who they are and the possibilities available to them. Their agency and relative power are visible in the examples of boys being boys in a myriad of ways. Children ‘do gender’ and their performances can vary depending on their ongoing working theories as well as contextual factors such as time, space/place and associates.

A number of gender discourses are at work here. Jack’s story shows children (and some adults) attempting to regulate and police children’s performances of gender and sexualities. While there are multiple possible readings of data depending on the theoretical framings one uses to understand gender and sexualities, among these 4-year-olds and their teachers, some gender performances stretched beyond dominant discourses, norms and stereotypes, while others perpetuated the status quo.

As Jack and his peers engaged in various gender performances related to the construction of their identities, they were acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes that combine together to form more elaborate and useful working theories about themselves and about the people in their lives. They were processing knowledge and information that supports them to make sense of new experiences during their ongoing inquiries into their lives and worlds. Jack’s ongoing story confirmed for me that his working theories about gender and sexualities were developing and ongoing during his early childhood; they were not always expressed tentatively but showed speculation, reasoning and inquiry (Hedges, 2011).

Jack’s gender identities, like those of other children, were multiple, partial and performed. They were based on his/their developing, ongoing, working theories and regulated to various degrees by dominant discourses of normativity that teachers did not always see, hear or challenge. This reminds me that normative discourses left unchallenged can limit children’s agency and their ways of being, and there are possible negative consequences. Jack’s story highlights that how peers and adults react to children’s performances, and their associated working theories, are significant. All reactions will serve to reinforce what is desirable and acceptable, and what is not.