Young children’s gender stereotype stories and in-service teachers’ perception towards children of different genders: Implications for Hong Kong kindergarten teacher education programs

Young children's gender development is a flourishing topic in educational research. Yet, little is known about teachers' perspectives towards gender issues in Hong Kong. As teachers are one of the significant others that influence the construction of children's gender concepts, this study aims to collect gender issue-related stories as teaching materials in teachers' education programs and explore how in-service teachers perceive gender issues. Through an inductive, qualitative study drawing from 12 semi-structured interviews with in-service kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong, children's gender stereotypes emerging in gender non-conforming behaviours are found. Two significant perspectives of how teachers see gender issues are "gender binary perspective" and "gender neutrality perspectives". Children's stereotypical stories and teachers' perspectives explored in this study can be included in teachers' education programs in order to support pre-service teachers in understanding children's gender development, realizing their own gender beliefs and thus developing gender-responsive pedagogy toward building a gender-equal preschool environment.