Using queer theory to rethink gender equity in early childhood education

The nurture view would see the children as having learned how to be girls and boys by watching and copying the behaviors of their parents or other significant role models. Since the 1970s, teachers who believe gender is learned through socialization have tried various gender equity strategies to encourage children to resist gender-stereotyped behaviors. [...] it explains how feminist post-structuralist theories have shifted the debate on early gender identity from either a nature-or-nurture framework to a more nuanced understanding of how children's gender is constructed. [...] it shows how queer theory builds on feminist post-structural understandings of gender by linking the construction of children's gender identities with the powerful influence of heterosexual norms. Copyright © 2012 National Association for the Education of Young Children.