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‘Queerying' gender: Heteronormativity in early childhood education (free full-text available) PDF Print E-mail
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Kerry H. Robinson
University of Western Sydney

This paper explores heteronormativity and argues for the ‘queerying' of gender in early childhood education. The author argues, utilising Butler's theory of performativity and heterosexual matrix, that the construction of gender in young children's lives requires an analysis of the normalising practices in which gendered identities are simultaneously heterosexualised. It is upheld that the dominant discourse of childhood in conjunction with developmentalist theory render sexuality as irrelevant to children's lives, thus resulting in a radical silencing and dismissal of how children become sexualised subjects. Thus these discourses operate to render invisible the process of heteronormativity operating in children's lives, including in early childhood educational contexts. It is argued that, if the intimate relationship between gender and sexuality is not incorporated into understandings of constructions of gendered identities, we will continue to get only a partial perspective of what is happening in this process.

Introduction

Over the past decade or so, research has increasingly documented the process of gender construction in early childhood. This research has highlighted how children themselves are active and knowing agents in this process, engaging in the policing of gender performances of other children (and adults), within rigid boundaries of what is widely considered ‘appropriate' masculine and feminine behaviours (Alloway, 1995; Davies, 1989; 1993; Grieshaber, 1998; MacNaughton, 2000). In addition, research has begun to identify the significant role of the curriculum and educators' pedagogical practices in constructing and normalising children's gendered identities (Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2000; Robinson & Jones Diaz, in press). However, a critical issue that seems to have received limited focus within the exploration of gender construction in children's lives is the way gender is inextricably constituted within and normalised through the process of ‘heterosexualisation' (Butler, 1990). The construction of children's gendered identities cannot be fully understood without acknowledging how the dominant discourses of femininity and masculinity are heteronormalised in their everyday lives, including through their educational experiences. That is, by the processes of gendering, children are constructed as heterosexual beings. This paper, through an exploration of heteronormativity in early childhood education, aims to ‘queery' the construction of gender in early childhood, highlighting the intimate links between gender and sexuality. It is argued that, despite the prevalence of the dominant discourse of childhood, which constitutes children as innocent, asexual and too young to understand sexuality, thus rendering sexuality as irrelevant to their lives, the construction of heterosexual desire and identities in early childhood is an integral part of children's everyday educational experiences. This process of heterosexualisation is rendered invisible through the heteronormativity that operates through such discourses and is naturalised within constructions of gender.

What is heteronormativity?

What is meant by heteronormativity? This term is used to designate how heterosexuality is constituted as the norm in sexuality. The perceived ‘normal' and ‘natural' status of heterosexuality is presumed through the process of normalisation; it takes on an unquestionable position of being the ‘true' sexuality, the natural order of things, primarily through the way that it is linked to the male–female biological binary and procreation. However, as Epstein and Johnson (1994, p. 198) point out, the normalisation of heterosexuality is ‘encoded in language, in institutional practices and the encounters of everyday life'. For example, religious discourses and practices operate as a significant component of the normalisation process of heterosexuality, particularly in relation to parenting and families; gay and lesbian parenting and families are often actively excluded from definitions of what is considered a family. The assumption often made on enrolment forms in early childhood settings, that children come from heterosexual families, is another example of this process. Thus, the normalisation of heterosexuality is a social phenomenon that is actively negotiated, with its dominant discourses and narratives primarily constituted within the socially constructed cultural binary of heterosexual us–homosexual them: a powerful hierarchy in which heterosexuality defines and speaks with perceived authority about the ‘other'. Institutionalised heterosexuality thus becomes the definer of ‘legitimate and prescriptive sociosexual arrangements' (Ingraham, 1994, p. 204) and the norm by which all other sexualities are defined as different, illegitimate and abnormal. Within this framework, heterosexuality becomes compulsory (Rich, 1980). As Letts IV (1999) points out, heteronormativity is ultimately about power; a reinforcing of a ‘culture of power' associated with heterosexuality. Within this culture of power the normalisation of heterosexuality is rendered invisible and diverts attention and critique away from the macro and micro social, economic and political discursive practices, including those operating in educational institutions that construct and maintain this hierarchy of difference across sexual identities.

The intimate relationship between gender and sexuality: Butler's performativity and ‘heterosexual matrix'

Research in recent years has increased awareness of the construction of gender in early childhood education. This research has resulted in a greater understanding of how subjects become gendered beings; that is how and why children actively take up particular ways of being boys or girls. Butler's notion of performativity is useful in understanding the construction of gender and looking at the ways girls and boys assert their gendered subjectivities. As defined by Butler (1994, p. 33), performativity is ‘that aspect of discourse that has the capacity to produce what it names … this production actually always happens through a certain kind of repetition and recitation'. Clarifying this definition, she points out that performativity ‘is the vehicle through which ontological effects are established' (1994, p. 33). How and where masculinities and femininities are played out, culturally and historically, is how hegemonic forms of masculinity and femininity get established, instituted, circulated and confirmed (Butler, 1994); it is the repetition of the performance of masculinities and femininities that constructs and reconstructs the masculine and feminine subject. Thus, gendered identities are constructed from the performances of subjects and the performances of other subjects towards them. Children repetitively perform their femininity and masculinity, in order to ‘do it right' in front of their peers and others (Butler, 1990) and it is through this repetitive process that the feminine and masculine subject becomes defined and constructed. It is crucial to point out that the concept of gender ‘performance' is always one enacted within strictly defined cultural boundaries; what counts as a performance of masculinity or femininity is rigidly defined and policed by the sociocultural context of the particular time. Getting one's gender performance right is critical, as individuals run the risk of being ostracised or bullied if they do not conform to what is generally upheld as appropriate boy or girl behaviours. What constitutes the knowledge of what it means to be a boy or a girl is based on the multiple discourses of masculinity and femininity that are culturally and historically available, which intersect with other sites of identity such as ‘race', ethnicity, class, sexuality and so on. However, the dominant or hegemonic discourses of gender in various cultural contexts operate powerfully at both the macro and micro levels of society to define what is considered ‘normal' gender performances and to police the ‘correctness' of such behaviours; for example, normal gender performances of masculinity and femininity are heterosexualised. Gender performances are constituted within relations of power, they embody norms of behaviour which subjects aspire to achieve, and reinforce the power of certain groups over others, such as heterosexuals over non-heterosexuals or queer identities. The poststructuralist notion that individuals are shifting subjects who are volatile, contradictory and changing, rather than rational, unified and static beings, provides a crucial framework in understanding the continual complexities of taking up gendered identities. Individual boys and girls, who are active agents in the construction of their own subjectivities, will locate themselves within certain discourses of masculinities or femininities, taking up these meanings and social relationships as their own. However, one's subjective positioning is not fixed, but can discursively shift as individuals read their locations within relations of power, claiming or resisting discourses according to what they want to achieve (Hollway, 1984). The young boy who engages in bullying behaviour as a performance of his masculinity, reinforced through a tentative respect from his peers (albeit a respect often based on fear) and societal and media representations of appropriate performances of masculinity often associated with displays of aggression (e.g. Rugby League sporting heroes), will generally not be persuaded to change his behaviour by pleas of hurting another child's feelings. Getting the performance of this form of masculinity correct, especially in front of peers, is often about public displays of aggression over others.

Of particular importance to Butler is how the construction of gender is assumed to be a natural process given by biology. The effect of the range of gendered performance is to make it appear that there are two distinct natures, male and female. As pointed out by Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon (2002, p. 99) ‘What we take to be “nature” is therefore an effect rather than a cause of our gendered acts.' The repetition of normalised gender performance polarised within the cultural binary male–female, which is socially constituted, renders this behaviour as being a given from nature, or one's biology.

Similar to the construction of gender, sexuality is socially and culturally constituted, with desire constructed and policed through powerful societal discourses (e.g. particular religious and legal discourses) and social practices that are institutionally and individually supported at both the micro and macro levels in society. However, as gender is made to appear as being from nature and biology, so is sexuality, with the relationship between the two viewed as symmetrical. As Wilton (1996, p. 127) points out, ‘This profoundly ideological notion of complementary gendered polarity—heteropolarity—has become the mystified and naturalised organising principle which saturates Western culture, structuring thought and social organisation around notions of binarism, complementarity, unidirectionality and polarity.' Through this process of normalisation, heterosexuality is upheld as the natural, instinctual, desired, appropriate sexuality, with all other deviations from this behaviour considered unnatural and abnormal. Sexuality, like gender, is perceived as shifting, changing, flexible and fluid; it is produced by society in complex ways, through diverse social practices, individual and social definitions; it is about relations of power. As Weeks points out, ‘Sexuality is not a given, it is a product of negotiation, struggle and human agency' (1986, p. 25).

Butler (1990) utilises the concept of a heterosexual matrix to identify this naturalised process of gender heteronormalisation. Butler perceives this heterosexual matrix as ‘a grid of cultural intelligibility through which bodies, genders, and desires are naturalised'. It is a ‘hegemonic discursive/epistemic model of gender intelligibility that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine expresses male, feminine expresses female) that is oppositionally and hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality' (1990, p. 151). In other words, Alsop, Fitzsimmons and Lennon (2002, p. 97), exploring Butler's theory, point out that ‘it is the “epistemic regime of presumptive heterosexuality”, which drives our division into male and female, and which itself structures our understanding of biology'. Thus, in Butler's perspective, it is the presumption of heterosexuality that ascribes bodies as gendered, rather than traditional perspectives which uphold that the natural distinction of bodies into male and female signifies the normality and naturalness of heterosexuality.

How gender and heterosexuality intimately and powerfully intersect in the definition and normalisation of each other is critical to an understanding of the construction of individuals, including children, as gendered and sexualised subjects. Although there is an increasing understanding of how gender construction operates in children's lives, the way stable notions of gender, sex and desire are constituted, expressed and normalised through compulsory heterosexuality (that is, how gender is heterosexualised and sexuality is simultaneously normalised as heterosexual) needs greater recognition in the field of early childhood education. This is particularly so if gender equity strategies employed in early childhood education are to be fully effective.

Hegemonic discourses of children and sexuality: Contributions to the invisibilisation of heteronormativity

In terms of fully understanding heteronormativity in early childhood it is important to explore the contribution that the dominant discourses of childhood and sexuality make to render this practice invisible. It is largely through the powerful intersection of these discourses and their reinforcement through psychological discourses of child development that sexuality is constructed as both irrelevant to children's lives and a ‘taboo' subject in their education. Thus, within this context, heteronormativity largely continues unabated in early childhood education as an unacknowledged and invisible everyday practice. This perceived and constructed irrelevance of sexuality to children's subjectivity results in a radical splitting off of sexuality from the construction of children's gendered lives both discursively and materially. That is, the role of heterosexuality in understandings of the construction of gender in early childhood tends to be silenced and rendered invisible in the development of theory, research, pedagogical strategies or policies. This process has critical implications for current understandings of the constructions of gender and sexuality in early childhood, for, without an understanding of how gender is constituted within heterosexuality, as previously discussed in this paper, the full picture of this process is never realised. It would be like reading Cinderella without acknowledging the construction of heterosexual desire as a major subset of the story; or discussing the impact of Barbie on constructions of femininity, without acknowledging Barbie's assumed heterosexuality and imagined relationship with Ken, as a critical component of this gendering process.

The relationship between children and sexuality is one shrouded in controversy, steeped in social taboos and founded in contradictions. As this relationship has been dealt with in depth elsewhere (see Gittins, 1998; Robinson, 2002; 2005), I will provide only a summary of it here. The relationship between childhood and sexuality is primarily constituted within dominant western discourses of childhood and sexuality, and the adult–child binarism that underpins these discourses. This binary relationship differentiates and segregates the lives of adults and children into polarised worlds, as well as constituting and perpetuating adults' power (and their right to power) over children, resulting in a myriad of inequalities between adults and children. Children are perceived and constructed as being totally dependent on adults for their survival and wellbeing, and become the powerless and voiceless ‘Other' within this relationship. In postcolonial terms, Cannella and Viruru (2004) argue that children have become colonised by adults. The modernist dominant discourses of childhood and sexuality primarily construct children as innocent and pure; as asexual, immature, and undeveloped beings, with no control over their bodies. They are ultimately considered ‘too young' physically, cognitively and emotionally to comprehend and understand sexuality, which is considered to begin at puberty when the child's body starts its physiological transformation into adult maturity. Sexuality is constituted as an ‘adults only' issue and an aspect of adult life in which children are particularly vulnerable and in need of protection. Therefore, dealing with sexuality with children is generally regarded as developmentally inappropriate (Robinson, 2002). Research conducted by Robinson and Jones Diaz (2000) highlights that children's understandings of sexuality, including their own sexual development, are not generally viewed by early childhood educators as being important or relevant to their early education. Within these readings of sexuality, it is important to point out that it seems to be always narrowly defined and understood in terms of physical sexual acts, rather than an integral part of children's and adults' subjectivity and identity. Such a narrow reading of sexuality allows people to dismiss its relevance to the lives of children and young people, who are perceived to be physically sexually inactive; they certainly hope this to be the case. However, sexuality is more broadly about relationships, life choices and practices, dispositions, pleasures, desires and fantasies—all of which are aspects of everyday life in which both children and adults actively engage. For example, sexuality is an integral part of the lives of many young children who are being raised by lesbian or gay parents, or have family and close friends who are gay or lesbian; they have to negotiate the everyday consequences of those people doing sexuality differently. Further, children's and young people's sexual desires and fantasies can be expressed and played out through their choices of friendships, clothing and music.

However, despite the prevalence and dominance of the discourse that children are asexual beings, adults have, ironically, gone to great lengths to ‘control' and police children's (and young adults') sexual behaviours; in fact moral panic often surrounds any perception of children being active sexual beings or being knowledgeable of sexuality issues (For an in-depth discussion of this see Gittins, 1998; Jenkins, 1998; Sedgwick, 1998; Wolfenstein, 1998). For example, in the early twentieth century infants were considered to have ‘strong and dangerous impulses', including autoeroticism, masturbation and thumb-sucking (Wolfenstein, 1998, p. 200). These behaviours were viewed as easily growing out of control, resulting in the child being ‘wrecked for life' (Wolfenstein, 1998, p. 200). Children's masturbation reflected the counter discourse that children were sexual beings. Mothers were advised to be extremely vigilant in checking for such taboo and ‘dirty' behaviours in their infants. As Foucault (1978) points out in his History of Sexuality, sexual taboos resulted in the close surveillance of individuals with the purpose of altering physical modes of behaviour. Masturbation in young female infants was viewed as more morally obscene due to the prevailing gendered discourses around sexuality that constructed females as pure, virginal, asexual, lacking in their own sexual desire and ultimately sexual vessels for the pleasure of men (Gittins, 1998; Robinson, 2005). The need for such surveillance in infants resulted in various practices to inhibit autoerotic behaviour in children, including tying the child's feet to the opposite sides of the crib in order that the child's thighs could not rub together and pinning nightgown sleeves to the bed so the child could not touch itself (Wolfenstein, 1998, p. 200).

As pointed out, major contradictions have existed, and still do in respect of children and sexuality. These are often constructed around adult fears. For example, Patton (1995) points out that adults often fear providing children and youth with sexual knowledge, believing that it will directly result in ‘causing' them to have sex prematurely. Similar fears exist around discussing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer sexualities in that it might ‘cause' children and youth to take up these sexual identities. This fear and ambivalence associated with dealing with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer sexualities is reflected through the concerns of this early childhood teacher educator:
[Teachers have to be] very careful about the way that they present the information [on gay and lesbian issues] because young minds are very malleable and you know I don't know whether you bring up people to be open minded about it and be aware. I don't know if you could say definitively why one person becomes homosexual and why one person doesn't (Robinson & Ferfolja, in press).
Of particular importance is the fear that many adults have, understandably, in relation to children's vulnerability to sexual abuse from adults and sometimes from older children. The prevalence of this abuse in homes and other frequented places, perpetrated largely by those generally well-known to and trusted by children, is a major social epidemic that continues to thrive despite government and community interventions to protect children. This sexual abuse of children is about power, which is primarily constituted within the adult–child binary that underpins the power relations between adults and children. However, as I have argued elsewhere (see Robinson, 2005), the constructed silence, irrelevance and taboos in terms of talking about sexuality with children and youth, often in the name of protection, have ironically contributed to their vulnerability to abuse and other risks. Adults have generally failed to provide children with the knowledge, understandings and confidence to be competent individuals in this area. Ironically, children who have an understanding of sex and sexuality are often ‘othered' as ‘unnatural children', with ‘unnatural knowledge', and this knowledge is generally considered to be a possible signifier of children's sexual abuse or unconventional family's practices. Thus, within this discursive context, there have been critical material consequences; children grow up with very little information, if any, about sex and sexuality; the secrecy and taboo nature of sexuality results in children often being fearful of talking about sexuality issues with adults; and the information they do have is often misinformation gained from discussions with peers. Therefore, children can become vulnerable to exploiting adults and older children. Ironically, as pointed out by Kitzinger (1990), it is primarily childhood ‘innocence' and perceived powerlessness that feeds into adult male sexual titillation in cases of child sexual abuse. Only in recent years has a serious challenge been made to the adult–child binary and the dominant discourses of childhood operating to silence children's voices, largely through the reconceptualising early childhood movement and the new sociology of childhood. As pointed out by Gittins (1998, p. 107), ‘Children, generally well looked after and protected, are none the less extremely vulnerable as a result of their own dependencies, isolation, silencing and disenfranchisement.'

A further consequence of the frenzy or moral panic associated with ‘protecting children', particularly relevant to early childhood educators, is that all touch becomes scrutinised and potentially dangerous. As a result, educators become fearful of engaging in any touch with young children, and this can impact on the positive development and expression of caring relationships between adults and children (or educators and children) which can be critical to children's wellbeing and their learning.

Heteronormativity in early childhood education

It is argued in this paper that the practice of heteronormativity in early childhood education is largely rendered invisible through the hegemonic discourses that constitute understandings of childhood and sexuality. The presumption that children are asexual, ‘too young' and ‘innocent' to understand sexuality is contradicted by the fact that the construction of heterosexuality and heterosexual desire is an integral part of children's everyday experiences, including their early education; for example, children's literature widely used in early childhood education constantly reinforces a heterosexual narrative (Cahill & Theilheimer, 1999; Theilheimer & Cahill, 2001). This process of heterosexualisation continues largely unabated, acknowledged only when it is perceived to not be working effectively, that is when the boundaries of compulsory heterosexuality seem to be transgressed, when children's heterogendered constructions seem to be unacceptably and inappropriately slipping beyond the norms. This fear is also conveyed by parents who are concerned about their male child becoming gay as a result of dressing in women's clothes in the home corner; or through educators who actively problematise and discourage young children's desire for same-sex relations if they transgress from what is perceived to be normalised heterosexual gendered behaviour—such as young boys in early childhood settings articulating their wish to ‘marry' the person they love best, often their best male friend (Wallis & Van Every, 2000). It seems that it is through such transgressions that children learn lessons about what is acceptable and what is intolerable.

In recent years research has demonstrated play as a critical site of gender construction (Alloway, 1995; MacNaughton, 2000). However, the fact that it is also equally a significant site of the construction of heterosexuality has received less focus in the research. Mock weddings, mothers and fathers, chasing and kissing games, and girlfriends/boyfriends are all examples of young children's narratives of their experiences in their early education. Such activities are often viewed as a natural part of children's everyday lives and are rarely questioned by educators. Seldom are they considered part of the ‘normalisation' of the construction of heterosexual desire and the inscription of heterogendered subjectivities in young children. Such heterosexualised activities are not linked to understandings of sexuality but are seen as ‘children being children', a natural part of growing-up that is often linked to biological perceptions of child development. Epstein (1995) has argued that the relationship between gender and sexuality is critical to an understanding of sexism and heterosexism in education, pointing out that sexism cannot be understood without an analysis of its relationship with heterosexuality.

Therefore, the construction of (hetero)sexuality is part of children's everyday lives, including what is learned in their early educational experiences, but it is rarely ever noticed, and almost never thought about. It is important to refocus our critical lens on construction of gender in early childhood in order to understand how gender is heterosexualised through heteronormative daily practices and interactions with peers, family, and in schooling and other institutions working with children. The media, popular culture, and children's literature play a major role in the perpetuation of heteronormativity in children's everyday lives. Children are heterosexualised through advertisements, which send strong messages to children and adults about appropriate heterogendered behaviour. For example, in a magazine about dining out in an Australian city, one advertisement for a local cafe used a picture of a young boy and girl (possibly seven or eight years of age) drinking coffee together and sharing a plate of fruit and ice-cream. Reading the text in terms of constructions of masculinity and femininity, the boy, dressed in black, is positioned as being taller than the girl, in control, in an active pose holding his cup of coffee while smiling and looking down at his ‘date', who is sitting closely beside him. The girl is wearing a light, sleeveless, floral dress in pinks and mauves and a straw hat ringed with pink and crimson roses; she has her hands folded under her chin and is smiling. This gendered reading is not complete without noticing that this scenario is very much heterosexualised. The look on the girl's face is one of coyness, seduction and desire as she leans forward, smiling demurely but avoiding the boy's alluring gaze. They show no interest at all in the tantalising plate of ice-cream and fruit in front of them but are totally engrossed in each other's company. The picture gives the impression that the food is only a backdrop to a scene full of sexual anticipation. The caption below the picture reads: ‘Ahhh … This is coffee'. This advertisement is one of many where the heterogendered construction of young children is viewed in terms of ‘cuteness' and the discourse of childhood innocence silences and renders invisible the heteronormativity operating within the texts. Children's literature and films also provide numerous examples of the ways children's cultures and children's gendered lives are heterosexualised. Giroux pertinently points out that ‘Children's culture is a sphere where entertainment, advocacy, and pleasure meet to construct conceptions of what it means to be a child occupying a combination of gender, racial and, class positions in society through which one defines oneself in relation to a myriad of others' (1995, p. 1). An examination of the last page of five randomly-chosen children's classics that have been made into highly successful Disney films—Beauty and the Beast, A Bug's Life, Anastasia, The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan—demonstrated the pervasiveness of the fantasised heterosexual happy ending. Peter Pan was the only book that did not obviously end on the last page with this message, though it is certainly a discourse found throughout the text itself. Giroux (1995, p. 2) comments that ‘Disney films combine an ideology of enchantment and aura of innocence in narrating stories that help children understand who they are, what societies are about, and what it means to construct a world of play and fantasy in an adult environment.'

It is critical to acknowledge and name the heterogendered performances operating in the everyday lives of children and in the examples given above. However, the voices and the interpretations that we hear almost exclusively around these issues (when we hear them) are those of adults. This is reflective of the heteronormativity operating around constructions of gender, but it is also, as I have argued elsewhere (Robinson, 2005), an additional consequence of the dominating discourses of childhood and sexuality (and those associated child protection discourses), in that we rarely, if at all, know what sense children make of them; their voices on these issues are rarely heard. It is important to ask questions such as: Are children aware of the heterosexualised nature of the scripts they are either drawing on or refusing in terms of their own gender performances? How do children interpret sexuality and actively construct their sexualised worlds? Working with children to explore their understandings and knowledge about gender and sexuality is important, but it involves negotiating the many social barriers and cultural fears that operate largely around sexuality and children. Apart from questioning the relevance of the issues to children, any researcher may be simultaneously placed under suspicion regarding their motives. Yet it is crucial to have a greater understanding of children's views on sexuality and the way that they construct their sexual worlds. It seems that the double-edged sword of ‘protection' has left children with little agency and voice in respect of these issues.

What does queer theory/pedagogy have to offer early childhood educators?

Queer theory, which stems from poststructuralist theoretical perspectives, reinforces the notion that identities are not fixed or stable, but rather are shifting, contradictory, dynamic and constructed. This perspective upholds that all identities are performances, and challenges normalising practices, particularly in terms of sexuality and the heteronormative constructions of gender, which has been the focus of this paper. It challenges the unquestionable, natural and normal positioning of heterosexuality as the superior sexuality and the ‘othering' of non-heterosexual identities, which is constituted within the cultural binary heterosexual us–homosexual them (see Jagose, 1996). The term ‘queer' encompasses those who feel ‘marginalized by mainstream sexuality' (Morris, 2000, p. 20), including those who see themselves as heterosexual but challenge the conformity constituted and enforced in hegemonic discourses of heterosexuality. Ultimately, queer theory disrupts the notion that one's gender and sexuality are inherently fixed in one's biological sexed body, upholding the pluralities of sexuality and the multiplicity of gender. This perspective provides a critical theoretical lens through which one can begin to see the everyday processes of heteronormativity operating within these contexts.

Queer pedagogy, informed by queer theory, thus undertakes to critically examine what is considered to be the natural order of things in terms of gender and sexuality; for example, that heterosexuality is presumed to be the natural, unquestionable and only correct sexuality and the point from which all other sexualities are judged; or that there are natural and normal ways of being boys or girls. Similar to doing feminist poststructuralist pedagogy (e.g. Davies, 1994; MacNaughton, 2000; Robinson & Jones Diaz, 1999), queer pedagogy seeks to identify the normalising discourses constituting common-sense understandings that define, restrict and police gendered and sexualised identities within the narrow boundaries of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, which are heterosexualised. For example, it is seen as natural for boys to play chase-and-kiss with girls. Queer pedagogy is primarily about disrupting and destabilising the cultural binaries male–female, sex–gender, heterosexual–homosexual explicit or implicit in these normalising discourses that operate to constitute and perpetuate artificial hierarchical relations of power between their constructed polarised opposites. For example, exploring the power relations inherent within polarised knowledge about boys and girls, such as boys are tough, loud and physically active, while girls are perceived as being quiet, softly-spoken, preferring to sit, read or talk with friends. This perspective reminds educators that, to fully understand the processes involved in the construction of gender in young children's lives, it is critical to acknowledge how this same process simultaneously constructs their sexualised identities. For example, Barbie is not just a powerful and persuasive representation of particular socially sanctioned ways of doing femininity, but of the normalisation of heterosexuality, which is unspoken. Thus, queer pedagogy is about deconstructing (see MacNaughton, 1998); that is, critically unpacking the normalising discourses that construct knowledge of gender and sexuality, including those operating every day in educational settings; exploring the values and assumptions constituted within these discourses; the purpose of the discourses; how particular subjects are positioned within these discourses; who benefits from these discourses and who does not; and how these discourses contribute to the policies and practices of broader social, economic and political structures. For example, the popular children's books (and films) identified previously in this paper can be used with children in order to explore what cultural scripts are implicit and explicit in the texts and how they work to position the reader (or viewer).

Queer pedagogy encourages educators to ask questions (regardless of how heretical they may initially seem!) that highlight and challenge how particular ways of doing gender and sexuality are normalised to the point that they become unquestionable. For example, what would happen if Barbie identified as a lesbian or queer? How would this challenge children's and adult's perceptions of Barbie? What does it say about Ken? The role Barbie has played in terms of constructions of gender in young girls' lives has been the focus of critique, but there has been limited discussion about how Barbie's heterogendered identity impacts on the construction of young girls' heterosexual identities and desire. How would children and adults react if Barbie changed her gender performance to represent a more queer identity; that is, a performance which disrupts emphasised femininity and challenges assumptions about her assumed heterosexuality? How far would they let her gender slippage go? Interestingly, a close friend gave her six-year-old niece a Barbie to add to her extensive collection. This Barbie was different, many hours were spent ‘queering' Barbie up; she represented a different performance of gender that was not easily read as heterosexual. Barbie's hair was cut short, she had several tattoos, a nose and nipple ring, black leather clothes, and so on. Despite all the effort put into this performance, this ‘Queer Barbie' lasted less than a week—she was found defrocked and mutilated (missing limbs), hidden at the bottom of the cupboard; ‘Queer Barbie' was well and truly reprimanded for her gender ‘slippage' and was ostracised from her more respectable hetero-feminised cousins. Finally, it is important to include adults in these questions, as it could be argued that many parents of young girls have great investments in Barbie's heterogendered identities and practices and would also be disturbed to see a queerying of her gender performance.

Conclusion

In this paper I have argued for a ‘queerying' of gender in early childhood education. I uphold that, until an appreciation of the heterosexualisation of gender is incorporated into understandings of constructions of masculinities and femininities in children's lives, conceptions of gender will remain incomplete and partial. It is critical to acknowledge the intimate links between gender and sexuality and that, in the process of gender construction, children are simultaneously constructed as heterosexual beings. Any examination of the construction of gender in young children's lives therefore needs to include a focus on how gender is inextricably constituted within and normalised through the process of heterosexualisation that operates through everyday practices, including those in education. However, it is also highlighted that the process of heterosexualisation is largely rendered invisible through two main avenues: through the heteronormativity that operates in dominant discourses of childhood and sexuality, which primarily depict sexuality as irrelevant to children; and through the way it is ‘naturalised' within constructions of gender. These two issues have largely contributed to a radical closing off of any examination of the heterosexualisation of gender in children's lives. Consequently, the construction of children as heterosexual subjects, a daily occurrence in early childhood education despite the perceived irrelevance of sexuality to children's subjectivity, which is operating through the curriculum, children's play, educators' practices, children's literature, and so on, is rarely acknowledged by educators. Interestingly, this process seems to come to the fore only when children's gender performances transgress from those that are heterosexualised and thus viewed as problematic. Experiences of retributions for such transgressions become powerful lessons in which children learn what is acceptable and what is intolerable in terms of their gender performances. This brings into critical view the importance of educators examining their own subject positions in terms of children and sexuality and the impacts this can have on children's choices.

Through highlighting queer pedagogy and teaching strategies based on feminist poststructural principles, the paper offers early childhood educators some potential avenues to address the issues raised. For example, far from a call to dismiss the books identified in this discussion outright for their largely inherent heterosexism and sexism (or classism or racism), many such children's texts currently used by educators are critical resources that can provide opportunities to re-examine with children the cultural scripts implicit and explicit in the texts and how they operate to position the readers/viewers. Queer pedagogy calls for asking different questions from those usually employed in order to deconstruct ‘the normal' inherent in the texts. Exploring children's readings of various texts and providing the space for different readings and different questions can lead to an awareness of children's understandings of gender, sexuality, and the intimate links between them.

References

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AJEC Vol. 30 No. 2, June 2005, pp. 19-28.

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