The Construction of Identities and Gender Roles in Infancy: Articulating Themes for Thought On the Pedagogical Work of Physical Education in Infant Education

Abstract

This study investigated gender relations in children from 4 to 5 years old who go to infant education groups in the public schools of Florianopolis. The main aim was to understand how children build indentities and gender roles in the relations they establish with their peers and with adults who are closer to them in these educational spaces. We base our studies in Scott (1995) and Louro (1997) on the definitions of gender relations and we borrow the idea of gender identity from Grossi (1998) and Stoller (1993) . We start from the idea that the interactions established by children are part of a number of objective and subjective experiences that create their identities, as well as their social gender roles. This investigation, of the ethnographic type, based on Geertz (1989) and Fonseca (2000) showed that even among very young children gender roles are very close to the roles lived by adults who live in the same cultural contexts and that gender identities are experienced at different stages of interaction between these children. KEY WORDS: Gender relations - Physical Education - Infant education.