En könad praktik? -En kvalitativ studie om hur förskolepedagogers interaktioner med barnen på förskolanreproducerar samhälleliga könsnormer

Sammanfattning: As an institution, the preschool shall contribute to an active education of democracy andequality. Preschool educators are important intermediaries within the educational system andtheir work shall contribute to a democratic environment. The methods that preschooleducators use has a big impact on children’s education and application of democraticprinciples and how children get affected by this is based on the values that the preschool hasin their environment. The preschool supports different principles of equality, which meansthat they work actively to strengthen the child’s knowledge and values for equality in livingconditions. The preschool also teaches the children that everyone is equal regardless thegender. Research shows that children at the age of 2.5 begin to make use of their genderidentity, girls begin to show stereotypically female tendencies while boys showstereotypically male tendencies. The children’s identity is formed and created throughinteraction with other people, for example preschool educators at the preschool. Therefore, itis interesting to see how preschool educators affect children’s gender socialization in thepreschool by focusing on the roles that preschool educators take in the making of gender. Thepurpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of how preschool educators relate toboys and girls at the preschool. Are the children treated equally within the preschoolenvironment or is there a difference between what gender they have and further on howgender is created in practice. Our qualitative study was conducted at a preschool in middleSweden where we studied preschool educators’ interactions with the children. To answer thepurpose of the study, we made participant observations and interviews with preschooleducators at the preschool. The results of the study show us that preschool educators behavedifferently to boys and girls despite having conscious thoughts about gender. Howapproaching the gender happens unconscious in preschool educators’ interactions with thechildren.