"I Said 'Usually'": Using Picture Books in Kindergarten Language Arts Classrooms to Understand and Support Gender Equity and Diversity

• In Event: Gender and Its Relations to School Experiences, Achievement, and Violence, Across Countries and From Kindergarten Through Adolescence

Abstract

This proposal explores the possibilities of using picture books to foster understanding of gender diversity and equity in early elementary classrooms. Questions of how to create communities where all children feel safe and capable of learning require attention on many levels, from procedures, to school design, to curriculum. Using age-appropriate language and texts, the aim of this work is to demonstrate not only the ways that young children have already absorbed social norms about the right ways to ‘be a boy’ or ‘be a girl’, but also the potential that book discussions have to disrupt these assumptions and foster a broader, more equitable understanding of gender identity with young children.

Authors

• Katrina Emily Bartow Jacobs, University of Pittsburgh

• Thomas Hill, University of Pittsburgh