Playing outside the lines: A postdevelopmental inquiry into loose parts and gendered subjectivities

Abstract

This article explores how loose parts play functions as a material–discursive space in which young children negotiate gendered subjectivities. Framed by postdevelopmental and feminist new materialist perspectives, the study challenges developmentalist assumptions that treat gender as a stable, age-related attribute and instead foregrounds children’s shifting becomings with materials, peers and discourses. The research was conducted as a qualitative case study in a public preschool in Türkiye with children aged 5–6. Data were generated through 6 weeks of non-participant observation in a specially designed loose parts environment, using a structured “Loose Parts Gender Observation Form”, and analysed through descriptive and thematic analysis. Findings show heterogeneous and often ambivalent patterns: some children reproduced binary gender norms through colour preferences and gender-segregated play, while others adopted non-traditional roles and cross-gender affiliations that quietly unsettled normative expectations. Loose parts emerged as socio-material actors that both stabilised and troubled gendered subjectivities, rather than as neutral pedagogical tools. The study concludes that loose parts environments hold significant potential for opening more expansive possibilities for becoming gendered in early childhood, provided that educators critically attend to how materials, interactions and exclusions are organised, and use systematic observation to inform ethically attuned pedagogical interventions.