America's Preschools Too Hetero 'As Norm,' Suggests University Of Michigan Study

ANN ARBOR, MI — America’s preschools operate in an environment in which “heterosexuality is always assumed, expected, ordinary, and privileged,” according to a paper published recently by a University of Michigan graduate student who teaches sociology. Heidi Gansen, the author of the paper, wrote that her research showed “heteronormative play” is pervasive in preschool classrooms, perpetuating “inequalities related to gender.”

Gansen suggests the time to disrupt a culture that assumes boys grow up to marry girls and girls grow up to marry boys is in preschool years, “because practices that facilitate heteronormativity in classrooms become much more ingrained in later years of schooling.”

For the study, “Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity: Gendered Sexual Socialization in Preschool Classrooms,” Gansen observed children in nine preschool classrooms in Michigan for almost a year. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, and click here to find your local Michigan Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

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“I find that before children have salient sexual identities of their own, children are beginning to make sense of heteronormativity and rules associated with sexuality through interactions with their teachers and peers in preschool,” Gansen wrote in an abstract explaining her research published July 14 in the quarterly journal Sociology of Education.

Among her observations, Gansen wrote that when playing “house,” girls exclusively mimicked their mothers, while boys played the role of fathers. If a girl asked to play the role of husband, the notion was rebuked by her peers, Gansen wrote, noting that “children did not allow cross-gender roles.”

Her research also showed that kids learn in preschool that “boys have gendered power over girls’ bodies,” Gansen wrote.

Teachers also have a role in perpetuating gender roles, Gansen wrote, noting that they interpret “same-gender signs of affection and homosocial behaviors as friendly” rather than as an indicator of sexual orientation.

To disrupt the culture, Gansen concludes preschool teachers should talk more in general about the legality of gay marriage and show “acceptance” of “actions that interrupt heteronormativity.”

Photo: Eden, Janine and Jim via Flickr Commons