This paper provides a discourse analysis of 12 Swedish sexuality education texts intended for preschool practitioners and published between 1969 and 2021. Using Fairclough's framework, we identify three discourses about children's sexual play in relation to children's sexual agency in the texts: child sexuality as encouraged and entangled with…

The aim of the study is to examine the knowledge and the information sources of preschool teachers about sexuality education, sexual behaviours that they confront in the preschool classes and their reactions to these behaviours. The research was designed according to the qualitative method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8…

Purpose: In the pre-school period, an active sense of curiosity, the most important developmental feature of children, is directed toward sexuality. In this context, it was aimed to develop a questionnaire to measure the sexual knowledge of children and to develop a sexuality education program based on the information level on sexual issues, and…

Research Findings: This study surveyed 216 pre-service early childhood teachers in Hong Kong to examine their levels of confidence in teaching different topics of sexuality. It also sought to explore the relationships of their different perceptions about sexuality education to their behavioural intentions towards children's curiosity. Results…

Masturbation is common in pre-schoolers. Early childhood and early primary education are a period in which children learn about the social limits of privacy and sexual behavior. The approach to masturbation in preschool period is an important issue that concerns teachers and parents. Public masturbation can be successfully solved by behavioral…

Although sex education has been found to improve young people's sexual and reproductive health, no formal programmes exist in Saudi Arabia. This study aims to assess the views of stakeholders on the need for sex education programmes for adolescents in Saudi Arabia, suggested forms of provision, and views on the information provided in Science and…

Desexualized heteronormativity saturates most educational spaces. Thus, research on LGBTQ teachers tends to focus on the precarious and vulnerable work conditions produced by this norm. The aim of this article is to contribute to a shift in the tale(s) about LGBTQ teachers so that they are presented as subjects rather than victims. Three…

Pedagogy and content that disrupt existing heteronormative structures and curriculum with positive representations of LGBTQ people, history, and events are connected to more welcoming school experiences for all students. To understand elementary teachers' choices with regards to content and pedagogy that disrupt gender and sexuality norms, this…

This qualitative research paper discusses how the material environment of preschool classrooms contributes to early childhood experiences of gender. It applies poststructuralist and posthumanist concepts -- primarily Barad's agential-realism -- to analyse ethnographic data extracts drawn from the author's semi-longitudinal study in a UK nursery.…

Cultural stories provide us with a repertoire of narratives through which we interpret and construct our understandings of the world, including our gendered understandings of the early childhood teacher. Through her notion of "écriture feminine", Cixous [1976. "The Laugh of the Medusa." Trans K. Cohen and P. Cohen. "Signs:…

Early childhood and primary educators' and carers' education and support in identifying and responding appropriately to children displaying problematic sexual behaviours has fallen behind the demands currently arising in care and education sites in Australia. This is a key finding of research examining professional educators' and carers'…

The main aim of this study is to determine questions of 36 to 72-month-old children have about sexuality and to examine the answers given by parents. In the first stage of the study, 84 parents were contacted in order to determine children's most frequently asked questions on sexual development. In the second stage, top two questions from this…

To examine associations between participation in Tulsa's preschool programs and a set of middle-school attitudes, we used propensity score weighting to compare the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) pre-K participants and, separately, the Community Action Project (CAP) Head Start participants to students who had attended neither TPS pre-K nor Head Start…

Using ethnographic data from 10 months of observations in nine preschool classrooms, I examine gendered sexual socialization children receive from teachers' practices and reproduce through peer interactions. I find heteronormativity permeates preschool classrooms, where teachers construct (and occasionally disrupt) gendered sexuality in a number…

Many early childhood educators encounter children who exhibit sexual behavior and are not sure how to respond. Although they have had training in childhood development, sexual development is rarely given the attention it deserves. At the same time, early childhood education personnel often get training in child abuse and in their responsibilities…