Gender relations in Early Childhood Education: structure and agency in the process of building meanings about being a boy and being a girl

ABSTRACT In this paper, the ways children experience gender relations in an Early Childhood Education institution are analyzed, in order to highlight the articulations between the structural dimensions and the agencies of boys and girls. The research object is the relations between the institutional regulation and the actions of boys and girls of 4 and 5 years old, in the choices and uses of the environments of an institution of Early Childhood Education. From a theoretical point of view, the text is anchored in gender studies and studies of childhood and Early Childhood Education. From the methodological point of view, the study is configured as ethnography developed throughout 2015 with 7 girls and 11 boys of 5 years old and their teachers in a public Early Childhood Education institution located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, having as instruments of data production: participant observation, interviews, drawings articulated with the orality of the children. It was verified that the regulation exerted by teachers influences the action of children in the process of choice and use of the spaces of Early Childhood Education, since boys were more expansive than girls concerning the use of the spaces of the institution.

摘要 本文以某幼儿教育（Early Childhood Education）机构中儿童对性别关系的体验路径为分析对象，旨在揭示结构维度与男女儿童能动性之间的关联机制。本研究的核心对象为4至5岁男女儿童在幼儿教育机构环境的选择与使用过程中，制度规制与儿童行为之间的互动关系。从理论层面而言，本文立足于性别研究、童年研究与幼儿教育研究的学术脉络。方法论上，本研究采用民族志研究范式，于2015年在巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州贝洛奥里藏特市的一所公立幼儿教育机构开展，研究样本包括7名5岁女童、11名5岁男童及其任课教师；数据采集工具涵盖参与式观察、访谈以及结合儿童口头表达的绘画作品分析。研究证实，教师所实施的制度规制会影响儿童在幼儿教育空间选择与使用过程中的行为表现：相较于女童，男童对机构空间的使用更具拓展性。