Contribution to Book
Books, Gender, and Sexuality in the Early Grades
Multicultural Books for PreK–Grade Three: A Guide for Classroom Teachers
(2023)
Abstract
For many, the idea of talking about gender and sexuality to children in the early grades (K–3) often leads to shock or reluctance (Hermann-Wilmarth & Ryan, 2019). Gender and sexuality (especially gender diversity and LGBTQ+ issues) are also topics that parents don’t believe belong to classrooms. Teachers may believe the topic is too polarizing to include through texts or classroom discussions, even in older grades (Najarro, 2021; Rhoden, 2022). However, informal and formal conversations about gender and sexuality ARE present in schools, even in elementary classrooms and as early as kindergarten! Students are grouped in boy-girl pairings, or divided into groups: boys on this side, girls on that side. Friendships are closely monitored (by children’s peers and adults alike), especially as the children get older and if a boy spends “too much” time with only girls, or vice versa. And playground chants (like the one that suggests two children are sitting in a tree, KISSING) are closely linked to (hetero) sexuality (Kedley, 2015). Bathrooms (and laws that are implemented to segregate bathrooms by sex, or women’s and men’s spaces) are separated to “protect” women and girls from the men and the public at large (Rhodan, 2016). Thus, these conversations (about sex and gender) are happening in schools in heteronormative ways that make some forms of gender and sexuality appear “normal” and “natural”
Disciplines
Publication Date
2023
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield
Citation Information
Kate E. Kedley. "Books, Gender, and Sexuality in the Early Grades" Multicultural Books for PreK–Grade Three: A Guide for Classroom Teachers (2023) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kate-kedley/19/