During the first part of the Primary Research, I've been doing observations in some kindergartens located in Guangdong Province, China. In the literature research stage, I found very little information about gender equality education implementation, so at this stage, I hope to understand the current situation of gender equality education in China through observation. I also assumed that kindergartens' teacher-child interaction and supervised peer interactions are important in the gender socialization process. Teachers have a significant role in providing gender-fair early education environments. Therefore, I deployed naturalistic observation as the major method for collecting data.
I observed classes in both sciences and arts. I also observed what was happening during break times, PE class, and reading time. To validate the research and respect the participants, I was stipulated silent observation at the back of the class, without interfering in the lesson, to minimize the teacher's impact on the lesson's natural flow.
I went to the following kindergartens: DongDong Kindergarten; iBobbi Kindergarten; Country Garden Kindergarten
During the observations I wanted to achieve three goals:
During the observations I wanted to achieve three goals:
1. Gender equality education observations: Whether the school had carried out the Gender equality education. Did school conduct the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity introduction workshop to explain the differences between boys and girls?
2.Gender-stereotyping observations: What gender patterns can be tracked from the kindergarten teachers’ observations during their work experience? Does kindergarten actually provide gender equality environments to children?
Results
First, I collected some schedules of these kindergartens to know about their curriculum. The schedule in Country Garden Kindergarten is divided into Junior Class / Middle Class / Senior Class and the form of course are maily focus on Storytelling, Game and DIY workshop.
Curriculums are designed to develop children's artistic, athletic and academic abilities:
Language Arts
A typical course of study for Country Garden Kindergarten language arts includes pre-reading activities such as learning to recognize upper- and lower-case letters of the alphabet and the sounds of each.
Science
Math
A typical course of study for Math includes topics such as counting, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, sorting and categorizing, learning basic shapes, and pattern recognition. Children will learn to recognize numbers 1 through 100 and count by ones to 20. They will learn to describe the position of an object such as in, beside, behind, and between.
Social Studies
Social studies focus on exploring the world through the local community. Provide opportunities for children to learn about themselves and their role in their family and community. Teach them about community helpers such as police officers and firefighters. Introduce them to basic facts about their country, such as its president, its capital city, and some of its national holidays.
Similar to Country Garden's curriculum, iBobbi and DongDong Kindergarten's curriculum also focuses on improving children's academic ability rather than integrated quality education, such as body awareness education.
From the curriculum schedules of these three kindergartens, I find that gender equality education is missing in them. These kindergartens may not guide students to pay attention to their bodies; or help children to understand gender equality as well as gender identity, although they provide various curriculums to kids, involving art and science.
Gender-stereotyping observations
1. In terms of Gender-stereotyping observations, I found that kindergarten staff accentuate the children’s characteristics by highlighting girls’ and boys’ appearance, size and physical skills.
Boys are usually receive comments on size and strength, and motor skills are also emphasised, while girls are told that they are sweet and cute: "You’re a big boy now; you can climb onto the chair yourself." "Oh, aren’t you so sweet and pretty today, YanLing? You’re a little princess." "Liea, your hair is really lovely today."
Clothes are subject to similar attention. Girls in dresses, lace and bright colours are nice and sweet, while boys in trousers and jumpers are rough and tough: A four-year-old girl in kindergarten had short hair and wore dark colours. This girl was frequently discussed because she was dressed in boys’ clothes whether she was indoors or outdoors. When there were new temporary staff in the kindergarten they were very unsure whether this child was a girl or a boy. One day, this particular girl was wearing a pink dress when she arrived at the kindergarten, and the staff praised her all the time because she was such a lovely girl and because she had such a lovely dress on.
The kids’ observations show that appearance, clothes and colours contribute to emphasising the gender to which children belong. The observation about the girl who was dressed in boys’ clothes causes reactions and uncertainty among the staff. On the other hand, when the same girl’s appearance corresponds with the kindergarten staff’s perceptions of how girls should look, which in the observation is by wearing dresses, she is positively reinforced.
2.The observation also show that both girls and boys challenge traditional gender-stereotyping roles.
The children are doing bead craft. Xing is playing with pink and purple beads, and staff tells him: ‘You’re using girly colours’. Xing replies: ‘No, I think these are lovely colours’.
The observation shows gender affiliation through colour. Kindergarten's staff considers pink and purple to be girly colours and reacts to Xing choice of colours. And her comments show a general cynicism about the colours pink and purple, while Xing has no colour preferences and just thinks that the colours are lovely.
Another example is: The children are outside, and there is a lot of noise. Two boys are yelling and jumping off a climbing frame. A girl called Kaiqi comes over, sees what the boys are doing, climbs up the climbing frame and jumps off, yelling too. However FangLi (member of staff) goes over to Kaiqi , takes hold of her and says, ‘you’ve got to stop screaming like that!’. No comments are directed at the boys, but Kaiqi is removed from the game.
This observation shows that Kaiqi is challenging the gender structure, while the kindergarten staff conform to gender stereotypes. It supports the notion that boys are boisterous, physical and active, while girls should play calmly and be quiet.
Discussion
The purpose of this observation is to investigate which gender patterns can be tracked in the kindergarten teachers’ observations during their work experience. Through analysis and interpretations, I have tried to highlight how gender is expressed in kindergarten. The results also show that girls and boys are innovative and challenge traditional gender patterns, but often encounter staff who conform to gender stereotypes.
Gender is identified based on how we look, what we do and characteristics that we express. Using expressions such as ‘sweet,’ ‘lovely,’ ‘big’ and ‘strong,’ the staff in the data material make gender distinctions, while also contributing to defining masculinity and femininity. Masculinity is expressed when the staff affirm the boys’ strength and physical characteristics; they are big and strong. This masculinity is also transferred to the boys’ clothing, which in the data material is described as rough and tough. Femininity on the other hand is related to the girls’ appearance. The staff tell the girls that they are cute, they have nice hair, they have sweet clothes and are generally referred to as little princesses. The term ‘princess’ underlines an objectification of the girls where the staff make them an object instead of the subject. When the staff make a fuss of the girls’ appearance, this helps teach the girls to cast a critical eye on their own gender.
I found both traditional gender stereotyping and examples of gender boundaries being pushed within kindergarten. The majority of the students’ observations show that the staff relate differently to girls and boys with regard to expectations, behaviour and characteristics. This means that even from an early age, the girls and boys adapt their behaviour in relation to what is expected of their gender.