Operationalizing Gender Transformative Early Childhood Education in different contexts

• In Event: Advancing gender equality in and through Early Childhood Education: Lessons from FAWE, Plan International and VVOB

Proposal

Plan International has a commitment to gender transformative education, beginning with early childhood education. This goes beyond acknowledging and responding to gender disparities within the education system and the learning experience of the student, and strives to harness the full potential of education to transform attitudes and practices within and beyond the education system.

Plan’s Gender Transformative Education Programming works at multiple levels to promote and improve access to education for all by targeting the root causes of gendered social and economic barriers, to strengthen the transformative nature of education systems and service provision, and to create an enabling environment for transforming unequal gender norms. Beginning in early childhood, Plan works to support greater gender equality to, in and through education.

For Plan, work in gender transformative ECE means:
• Understanding how gender attitudes and norms influence how educators treat girls and boys differently, and how “classrooms” are key spaces for gender socialization where children are taught and internalize limiting gender attitudes and expectations.
• Supporting teachers/facilitators to apply gender-responsive pedagogical approaches that address the individual needs of children in all their diversity.
• Reviewing and revising preschool curriculum, teaching materials, play and learning materials and the preschool physical environment in order that these challenge rather than reinforce negative gender stereotypes, attitudes and norms.
• Promoting the engagement of men in the early childhood education workforce, and supporting women and men educators to work alongside each other in ways that model gender-equal relations and challenge negative stereotypes and norms.
• Working with parents/caregivers of all genders, promoting their participation in their children’s learning and building their understanding of and support for gender-responsive approaches.
• Influencing for changes in Education Policy – including ECE in Gender Responsive Education Sector Planning (GRESP), improved budgets, service regulations, teacher training and Continuous Professional Development, remuneration and employment conditions for teachers.

In this presentation, Plan International will share experience and evidence from programs around the world, including in China, El Salvador and Cambodia, to demonstrate how gender equality can be promoted in and through ECE. Findings from Plan research has shown that in many ECE centres and preschools, the curriculum; play and learning materials; and the teachers’ behaviors and interactions with children often reproduce and reinforce gender norms and expectations for girls’ and boys’ behaviors, abilities and future role. To address these challenges, learnings and evidence from Plan’s work will be shared, including considerations for contextualization. For example, in Jia County of Shaanxi province, Plan International China worked in partnership with the local Education Bureau to develop a guide for teachers on promoting gender equality in kindergartens. Plan also developed training materials and other resources, alongside gender equality standards for kindergarten to improve knowledge, attitude and practice of teachers, school leaders and parents on gender equality in the classroom, building on survey information to understand local context and needs. Other examples and learning from Plan’s work will also be shared.

Author

• Qing Xue, Plan International China