“What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs”: Responding to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in the Early Childhood Classroom

Abstract

This paper is based on data generated from a qualitative study of gender and sexuality in a kindergarten classroom. Postdevelopmental perspectives of sex, gender, and sexuality are used to show how young children are constructing gender and heterosexual discourses in the early childhood classroom. Drawing from feminist poststructuralism and queer theory, theoretical tools are used to examine children's play outside of development. Taking a postdevelopmental stance towards gender, sex, and sexuality enables the creation of proactive, rather than reactive, strategies for responding to young children's identity construction.