In Sweden, Equality Starts in Pre-School.
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Education/Pre-school/Reading/Equality-at-daycare/
Turning theory into practice
Trödje pre-school started working with gender pedagogy in 1996. Pre-school teacher Ingeborg Bergvall says: “We keep the children under observation to see which abilities they need to develop and then we work with that. One example is that we keep boys and girls separated during lunch, since girls from an early age know that they are expected to serve others. We want to teach them to think more about their own needs. We have also removed gender-specific toys, for instance dolls and cars.”
One of the key goals of gender pedagogy is to broaden children’s view of what boys and girls can do, and make them question gender roles.
Jonas Rangstad, a child minder at Nicolaigården pre-school, says: “In society there is a big difference between toys for boys and girls, but we always introduce all kinds of activities and toys to all children.
“I think that if I would have been raised with gender pedagogy, I would have fewer subconscious prejudices about men and women.”
In an interview with Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet two of the first children schooled in gender pedagogy at Trödje said they were more open-minded today as teenagers. Elin Gerdin described herself as independent and Niklas Knutsson said he didn’t judge people who broke gender patterns. Although Trödje children say they are just like anyone else, their teachers over the years have noted a difference. The boys were said to be unusually calm, with well-developed language skills and social competence, while the girls were more secure and could make themselves heard.
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