Gender, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

This week I explored the topic of gender and sexual orientation and how it relates to the early childhood field. I learned that beliefs about homophobia restrict people from allowing children to explore gender roles freely (Laureate Education, n.d.). I had a class discussion with a group of high school students learning about preschool growth and development on how young children learn gender roles. Often families have very different views about what is acceptable behavior for a girl and what is acceptable behavior for a boy. Students shared stories of family members making comments about boys not playing with baby dolls or wearing dresses because they don't want them to "turn out gay." This discussion reinforced my learnings from this week. Everyone in class was familiar with the common stereotypes, but what do we do about them? The first step is becoming aware of how our everyday comments and behavior influence a young child's gender identity.

 Children are influenced strongly by the people closest to them, but also by society- movies, books, television, toys, etc. Children are bombarded with the media, and gender roles become quite apparent when you look for them. Clothing, hairstyles, and toys are all examples of how we pass on gender stereotypes. If you walk down the toy aisles in a department store the princesses, dolls, barbies, and anything pink and purple is in one aisle. Then in another aisle are all the trucks, super heroes, transformers, and dinosaurs. The stores assume that depending on which sex the child is he/she only needs to walk down one aisle. Movies constantly depict the males as strong, intelligent and brave while the females are pretty, weak and need to be rescued. Young children soak it all in. 

As we learned last week, many different family structures exist and whether we believe the family structure is appropriate or not, a child's family plays a crucial role in his/her development. I think bringing books and other visual aides into the early childhood classroom that depict all family types is very important. It is our "duty to help all children develop a positive sense of self, no matter what our personal beliefs are" (Laureate Education, n.d.). Children need to be supported in their identity development and making them visible is a key component in that process (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). 

References:

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Gender [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Sexual orientation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu