How gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school

ABSTRACT

This case study attempts to capture the way gender is constructed and experienced in the social world of the nursery school. It presents findings from a staff survey, structured and unstructured observations of one male’s and one female’s professional practice and one-to-one interviews with children aged three to four years. Despite practitioners’ reported intentions to challenge traditional notions of gender, construction of traditional gender distinctions was not problematised by staff and was upheld by comments of children. Children appeared to construct themselves in terms of gender stereotypes and were offered only limited alternative gender positions by the male and female practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Men and masculinity
• gender construction
• male practitioners

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Birmingham City University who awarded a bursary for the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Charlotte Jones http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6624-9800

Carol Aubrey http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2377-9526