Objects of conflict: (re) configuring early childhood experiences of gender in the preschool classroom

Lyttleton-Smith, Jennifer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0704-2970 2019. Objects of conflict: (re) configuring early childhood experiences of gender in the preschool classroom. Gender and Education 31 (6) , pp. 655-672. 10.1080/09540253.2017.1332343

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Abstract

This qualitative research paper discusses how the material environment of preschool classrooms contributes to early childhood experiences of gender. It applies poststructuralist and posthumanist concepts – primarily Barad’s agential-realism – to analyse ethnographic data extracts drawn from the author’s semi-longitudinal study in a UK nursery. This data focuses on two specific areas of the classroom, the ‘home corner’ and the ‘small world’, and the paper argues that these areas and the objects contained within them can support or challenge/queer gender roles depending on temporal material-discursive conditions. It concludes with specific thinking points for practitioners, arguing that applying these theoretical concepts to explore gender in the early years produces interesting perspectives on how rigid, binary gender roles can be challenged effectively in non-discursive ways within classrooms.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	0954-0253
Funders:	ESRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 June 2017
Date of Acceptance:	12 March 2017
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 20:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/101884

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