The Influence of Gender Bias on Children in Childcare Settings

To date, Early Childhood Education (ECE) courses and curriculum are primarily focused on a being gender neutral and teaching non-traditional gender practices in childcare settings. Further, many child care providers, specifically ECE teachers, are women. This paper describes how many teachers in childcare settings are teaching boys and girls to take on both gender neutral and non-traditional gender roles with little regard to culture, family background or a child’s ability and/or interests in order to counter perceptions of sexism by trying to control, limit, and confine children. Further, for boys to suppress their behaviors, become less aggressive and soften them into what teachers want boys to become and for girls to become more aggressive, provocative and challenge boys in childcare settings. The gender bias, feminist in origin, is teacher-centered and not child-centered which is in direct conflict with best practices in ECE. Further the research shows that the gender bias is having a negative influence on the growth and development on children in child care settings