Giulio Galoppo | Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (original) (raw)

Over the past three decades, gender studies have demonstrated, in different ways, that there is n... more Over the past three decades, gender studies have demonstrated, in different ways, that there is not just one form of masculinity and femininity, but several, diverse versions of the sex life. Woman man dualism is not, therefore, the only existing model. It is nevertheless the basis for heteronormativity. It established heterosexuality as a social norm of gender relations. Heteronormativity is embedded in everyday social practices, which is why heterosexual orientations are perceived as 'normal', non heterosexual as 'deviant'. Individuals are always divided into groups, first girls and boys, and later men and women, that is, sexually categorised.
In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler describes how children have to constantly examine their femininity or masculinity so they can act "properly" with playmates and others. In spite of all this, the cultural system of gender binarism and heteronormativity is far from being the only option available. Butler asserts that the alternative cultural configurations of gender identity (Butler, 1990) are only maintained and concealed by the prevailing heteronormative discourse in the background.
Certainly early childhood education teaching and learning materials are available that refer to changes in family structures – selectively including the single mothers/fathers or same sex parents. Strikingly, however, gender diversity is almost never discussed with children. Gender studies emphasise all the more how important it is to address diversity in children's institutions and to strive for new perspectives in pedagogy. This implies finding new ways of interacting and communicating with children, which may be able to question and undermine the prevailing powerful dualistic model.
In my research, I examine how the non conforming configurations of gender identity in children (Butler, 1990) should be presented through the new perspectives of a viable pedagogy, and how the latter is able to respond to, resist, and overcome experimentally the dominant cultural system of two sexes and heteronormativity. Through ethnographic field studies, I was able to carefully observe the experience of children in kindergartens. Is it really heteronormative? I sought to address the question of how heteronormativity materialises at the level of social practices and performance. In other words what physical, emotional and intellectual patterns of behaviour are unveiled. Finally, I will highlight the performances that, in contrast to those, either reject dualism or indicate compromises.
The research question is therefore divided in two phases:
⁃ 1a) Do kindergarten and pre school aged children endeavour to behave according to heterosexual norms? If so, how?
⁃ 1b) Are children able to challenge gender norms? How do they do that?
⁃ 2a) Can the use of picture books in kindergartens and pre school facilities help soften existing categories? If so, how? (Davies, 1989, 2002; Keuneke, 2000)
⁃ 2b) Do picture books that I read aloud and showed to the children help them to question heteronormativity, or in other words, create new ways of shaping the social gender?
The starting point of my research is the firm belief that children represent independent actors and are to be respected as such. For this reason, I believe it is a major concern to recognise their rights, interests and views in the research process. Children are actors in designing their own lives and their opinions and wishes must be heard and taken into account (Chowns, 2008; Liebel, 2007). The decisive approach in this context is to let them have their say and thus highlight their perspectives. That is the basis of the qualitatively oriented methods of data collection and analysis of my project.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
In Italy, as in France and in the German state of Baden ­Württemberg, a violent gender debate currently rages in institutions of early childhood education and schools (Marzano, 2015). This empirical, qualitatively oriented study drawing from the Grounded Theory Method (Glaser & Strauss, 2010) is embedded in that debate. During the data collection phase from March to June last year I observed the children in their kindergarten in Rome, took field­notes and collected verbal accounts from them.
In the first phase, I focused on getting to know the children, letting them get to know me, watching them in their everyday kindergarten and building a relationship of trust. In the second phase, I read gender nonconforming picture books to the children (e.g. Pardi & Altan, 2011;. Parnell & Richardson, 2011) and parallel to that I introduced a form of 'active verbalisation' on the part of children. This 'active verbalisation' is the most appropriate method to gather verbal data from children of 3 to 6 years of age (Hausser, 1982; Keuneke, 2000). Through this method, the children involved in the fieldwork got the opportunity to retell the stories that I had been reading aloud. This type of data collection can be regarded as a special form of observation. The children’s retellings were recorded and then transcribed. I participated in the kindergarten everyday and was able to learn about its substantive and structural features. Furthermore, throughout the fieldwork I kept memory logs of observed interactions and conducted a field diary, in which I noted all other relevant aspects. I experienced how children deal with normative gender attributions, whether they accept or reject them. I observed how the children perceive gender, and where disruptions occur. In order to develop my theses, I am now analysing the data collected in kindergarten (transcripts and observation protocols) using the qualitative content analysis method (Mayring, 2015) and on the basis of empirical material (Denzin, 2009). I examine, more closely, selected children in terms of what has changed in them during the observation period, whether and how they have evolved, and in what ways the picture books have affected them.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
In family and pre school settings children experience on a daily basis the educational expression of heterosexual features, which is transmitted discreetly and continuously (K.H. Robinson, 2005). Moving beyond the boundaries of this prevailing system seems to remain a utopian idea in the German educational landscape. All those who operate on the edge of and outside this gender order encounter resistance and rejection, they are ignored, repressed, but most often stigmatised. Already in their earliest years, these children do not correspond to society’s standard model of how a boy and a girl should be. They are different, feel different, without being able to classify their difference or their other perception. Nevertheless, from the outset they are supposed to appear clearly as either boy or girl, because to oppose the predetermined order could have serious, painful consequences and result in social isolation, bullying and harassment (K. Robinson & Diaz, 2006, p 130). However, children are quite capable of assuming a variety of masculine and feminine positions, supposing that they have access to discourses that present them in an unproblematic way.

Parents and teachers are therefore called upon to exercise pedagogy and didactic that help to avoid clichél aden sex roles. The most recent, popular children's literature can, in my view, offer an indispensable contribution in this respect (Norton, 1999, p 419). As far as the question of children’s perspectives, interpretations or perceptions of gender diversity and its representations is concerned, there are so far no German language research results. I have established my work in this field and hope to build bridges, or at least a fundamental and pioneering momentum, in terms of gender and education.