Notes on Gansen 2017: Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity in Preschool Classrooms
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Source: Heidi M. Gansen (2017) Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity: Gendered Sexual Socialization in Preschool Classrooms, Sociology of Education, 90(3):255-272.
Focus: Ethnography in preschool classrooms to examine how teachers’ practices and peers' interactions construct, reproduce, or disrupt gendered sexuality and heteronormativity.
Key concepts:
Heteronormativity: the view that heterosexuality is the normal, privileged, and assumed form of sexuality.
Gendered sexual socialization: how children learn rules, meanings, and conduct related to sexuality that align with gendered expectations.
Core finding (high level): Heteronormativity permeates preschool classrooms; teachers use varied approaches to shape children’s sexual socialization; children reproduce and sometimes resist these norms in daily play.
Method at a glance: ethnography with > hours of observation across preschools, children, and teachers; focus on behaviors like kissing, relationships, bodily displays, consent.
Four approaches identified (to be detailed later): facilitative, restrictive, disruptive, and passive.
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Abstract-aligned concepts:
Teachers’ practices contribute to sexual socialization that reinforces heteronormativity.
Children (age ~) engage in and negotiate heterosexual scripts in play and peer interactions.
Teachers’ approaches to gendered sexuality vary and shape how norms are constructed or disrupted in classrooms.
Core terms: sexuality, gender, preschool, ethnography.
Finding preview: heteronormativity pervades early classroom interactions; teachers’ approaches influence later disciplinary and relational dynamics.
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Theoretical framing: Schools as sites of heteronormativity and gendered socialization.
Key ideas:
Schools mirror dominant societal beliefs about sexuality and gender; they (re)produce heterosexual norms through curricula, rituals, and everyday interactions.
Hidden curricula: covert lessons that steer students’ understanding of sexuality, gender, and power.
Early childhood is a critical period where gender and sexuality norms begin to take shape and influence later schooling and inequality.
Research question: How do preschool teachers’ practices construct, normalize, or disrupt heterosexuality and gendered power in early childhood?
Context: Little prior developmental work on preschool heteronormativity; this study foregrounds teacher practices as shaping early sexual socialization.
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Continued theoretical/conceptual framing:
Heteronormativity linked to power and habitus; gendered power begins to organize behaviors and expectations well before salient sexual identities emerge.
Research aim detail: map how teachers’ gendered sexual socialization practices vary across preschools and affect children’s behaviors (e.g., romantic play, bodily displays, consent).
Broader context: connects to literature on schools as sites of gendered socialization and the role of classroom interactions in constructing sexuality.
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Data and methods (sample and setting):
Three Michigan preschools: Imagination Center, Kids Company, Early Achievers.
Observations: hours in classrooms; children; teachers.
Demographics: mix of white and nonwhite children; varied income levels (one site low income; others mid to middle class).
Curricula: HighScope (two sites) and Creative Curriculum (one site).
Research design: researcher observed as a reactive, middle-manager, non-sanctioning adult; emphasis on disciplinary practices and now, gendered sexual socialization codes.
Methods details:
Fieldnotes, direct dialogue when possible; qualitative coding in NVivo; emergent codes such as kissing, relationships/crushes, bodily displays, consent, house/wedding play, same-sex relationships, etc.
Table I (study overview) and Table II (codes and approaches) summarize contexts and coding categories.
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Recap of methods (coding and analysis):
Emergent codes included: kissing, relationships/crushes, bodily displays, consent, house play, wedding play, same relationships.
Subcodes by child gender, by teacher’s gendered socialization approach.
Assessment included disconfirming evidence via restrictive and disruptive approaches to capture disruptions to heteronormativity.
Participant/sample details (quick):
children (roughly years old); teachers; most teachers women; majority white; class sizes from ~ children per classroom.
Researchers’ positionality: observer in a middle-manager role; tried to balance access with non-interference.
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Findings preview: four teacher approaches to gendered sexual socialization across preschool classrooms:
Facilitative: actively promote heterosexual discourses and practices.
Restrictive: sanction or discipline sexual/discursive behaviors.
Disruptive: acknowledge or allow counter-heteronormative performances.
Passive: ignore sexualized behaviors without sanction.
Key areas affected by these approaches: heterosexual romantic play (kissing, relationships), bodily displays, consent, and house/wedding play.
Variation across preschools: teachers’ experience and age appeared linked to the likelihood of adopting more progressive vs. conservative approaches.
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Overview of Table 2 (Approaches to Gendered Sexual Socialization by Preschool):
Imagination Center ( Facilitative): Encouraged kissing across genders; interpreted boy-girl interactions as romantic; promoted “crushes” and relationships; examples include staff prompting or framing relationships and weddings.
Early Achievers (Restrictive/Passive): Emphasized modesty; policed bodily displays; tended to ignore boys’ body displays while disciplining girls for viewing or discussing bodies.
Kids Company (Disruptive/Passive): Counter-hegemonic responses occurred, e.g., allowing and later guiding conversations that challenged heteronormativity; in some cases, teachers used a passive stance toward boys’ displays.
Core takeaway: teaching approaches toward gendered sexuality vary by school context and influence how norms are constructed or disrupted in peer interactions.
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Facilitative approaches in action (Imagination Center):
Teachers promoted heteronormative play and relationships; example: adults treated two opposite-gender peers as a couple, referenced in daily talk, wedding imagery, and future marriage talk.
Younger teachers (avg. age in 20s) with less experience tended to enact more permissive facilitative practices.
Notably, same-gender displays were often read as friendship rather than romance.
Girl-boy romantic scripts: adults amplified heterosexual pairing, often when boys expressed attraction; girls frequently engaged in heterosexual play, while same-sex displays were framed as friendship.
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Passive vs. restrictive/body protocols (gendered bodily displays):
Across all nine classrooms, boys’ bodily displays were often ignored (passive approach) or not disciplined.
Girls’ bodily displays, or comments on boys’ bodies, were disciplined (restrictive approach).
Example: a girl viewing a boy’s body in a bathroom prompted scolding for the girl, while the boy’s display went unchallenged.
Implications for gendered power: in preschool, boys may gain bodily power over girls; girls’ displays are policed, reinforcing gendered norms and power dynamics.
Notable case: at Early Achievers, boys’ aggression (slapping, chasing) toward girls was frequently ignored by teachers, reinforcing masculine dominance in body interactions.
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Kissing as a central behavior and its management:
Kissing was pervasive across of the classrooms; teachers attempted to regulate by reminders like “save kisses for your family.”
Example at Kids Company: teachers held a classroom meeting to discuss kissing and how it’s inappropriate for preschoolers; rule-setting aimed at reducing romantic expressions in class.
Despite meetings, kissing persisted, albeit covertly.
Gendered responses to kissing: girls were more likely to be disciplined for displays or discussions about kissing; boys’ kissing tended to draw less punitive response.
Consequences: teachers’ disciplinary practices to kissing helped shape how students understood relationships, consent, and boundaries in early childhood.
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Disruptive examples across settings:
Mermaid incident (Kids Company): teacher allowed a same-sex relationship scenario in a mermaid play, which disrupted heteronormative assumptions.
Wedding girl incident (Imagination Center field trip): a teacher explicitly supported girls’ same-sex relationship play by acknowledging that “girls can marry girls,” countering peers’ exclusionary norms.
Role of disruption: counter-hegemonic discourse introduced by teachers can challenge peer norms and create space for recognizing same-sex relationships, though the long-term impact on play varies.
Peers’ reactions: some children resisted or challenged heteronormative assumptions, while others continued to reproduce norms; disruption provided a counter-narrative but did not uniformly transform play.
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Children’s reproduction of gender and heteronormativity:
Across all classrooms, children constructed and normalized heterosexual discourses through play (household roles, wedding scenarios, etc.).
Two moms/two dads were rarely allowed in wedding play; heterosexual pairings dominated.
Relationship labels (e.g., “boyfriend/girlfriend”) were more commonly applied to opposite-sex peers; same-sex pairings often labeled as friendship.
Girls’ caution in cross-sex behaviors: girls often checked teacher presence before displaying affection toward boys; boys’ cross-sex interactions were more readily tolerated, reinforcing gendered boundaries.
Overall pattern: preschool peer cultures actively reproduce heteronormativity, but some counter-normative moments arise via teacher disruption.
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Discussion: teacher roles and policy implications
Teachers are active socializing agents shaping early gendered sexual socialization; media and family also contribute, but preschool settings embed heteronormativity in children’s daily interactions.
Children both reproduce and challenge sexual norms; teachers sometimes discipline expressions of sexuality while occasionally allowing discussions about same-sex relationships.
Heteronormativity becomes embedded in the classroom through daily practices and interactions, beginning as early as years old.
Key policy implications:
Preschools should adopt explicit policies for handling children’s sexualized or romantic behaviors.
Teachers need training and resources to respond to these issues safely and affirmatively.
Use teachable moments (e.g., during read-alouds) to discuss consent and respectful boundaries.
Recognize the home-school dynamic and parental involvement; parental concerns can influence classroom practices.
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Policy and practice considerations:
Explicit training and policy guidance are needed for early childhood educators to manage gendered sexuality socialization.
Emphasize consent education and body autonomy early, without shaming or punitive measures.
Leverage daily classroom activities (reading, play) as opportunities to discuss respectful interaction and boundaries.
Acknowledge and bridge school-home differences in approaches to sexuality and gender.
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Implications for teacher development and school culture:
Teacher age and experience appear linked to approaches: younger, less experienced teachers tended to use more facilitative approaches; more experienced teachers showed progressive but sometimes more restrictive practices.
There is a need for ongoing professional development focused on gender, sexuality, consent, and non-heteronormative play.
Broader outcomes:
Early socialization shapes later gendered expectations and potentially long-term engagement with heteronormativity in schools.
Policymakers should consider preschool as a critical site for early intervention to promote inclusive and respectful norms.
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Conclusions and research contributions:
Preschool teachers actively shape children’s gendered sexual socialization; heteronormativity is constructed and sometimes disrupted at very young ages.
The study provides a developmental account of how heteronormativity begins in preschool, with implications for later schooling and society.
Calls for more research on how race and class intersect with gendered sexuality socialization in preschool, across different quality levels of programs.
Theoretical takeaway: early gendered sexual socialization contributes to later inequality and power dynamics; teachers’ practices are central to either maintaining or challenging these norms.
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Research ethics and references:
Exempt by university IRB; pseudonyms used; consent and confidentiality maintained.
The article draws on extensive literature about heteronormativity, gender, and schooling (Pascoe; Martin; Renold; Rubin; West & Zimmerman; etc.).
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Author note and references provided for further reading.
Core takeaways for exam preparation:
Understand the four teacher approaches to gendered sexual socialization: facilitative, restrictive, disruptive, and passive.
Recognize how these approaches shape the construction, normalization, or disruption of heterosexuality in preschool play.
Be able to discuss examples (kissing, wedding play, bodily displays, consent) and how gendered power appears as early as ages .
Consider policy implications: need for explicit guidelines, teacher training, and classroom strategies to address consent and respectful interactions in preschool.