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）机构内儿童对性别关系的体验路径为分析对象，旨在揭示结构性维度与男童、女童行动能动性之间的内在关联。本研究的核心对象为：该幼儿教育机构中，4至5岁男童与女童在环境选择与使用过程中，其行为与机构规制之间的互动关系。从理论维度而言，本文立足于性别研究、童年研究以及幼儿教育研究。从方法论层面来看，本研究采用民族志（ethnography）研究方法，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，研究对象为7名5岁女童、11名5岁男童及其授课教师。本研究的数据采集工具包括参与式观察、访谈以及结合儿童口头表述的绘画作品。研究证实，教师施加的规制会对儿童在幼儿教育空间的选择与使用过程中的行为产生影响：相较于女童，男童在机构空间使用上表现出更强的拓展性。