Several researchers and scientific institutions argue that evolution should be explored from the first school years. However, few studies have analysed primary school students' understanding of evolutionary processes or evaluated the impact of educational activities on such knowledge. The available data: (1) suggest that primary school students…

The purpose of this article is to examine how the discourse of childhood innocence masks the ways in which sexual violence by boys against girls is perpetrated in kindergarten. Findings from a year-long ethnographic study conducted in two Canadian kindergarten classrooms show that narrow understandings of gender and sexuality in childhood obscure…

While educators, curriculum authors and policy makers alike are influenced by assumptions about parents' dis/approval of gender and sexuality diversity, both generally, as well as specifically in relation to this topic's appropriateness for K-12 classrooms, little empirical data is available to support these assumptions. What data does exist…

Providing spaces for children's culture becomes an issue when it conflicts with or threatens to reverse the notion of 'legitimate' culture. Here, legitimate culture refers to the dominant values of the official curriculum and teachers' cultural values. This article, which stems from an ethnographically oriented pilot study, explores the experience…

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…

In this article, a teacher educator and a New York City elementary public school teacher share insights from a yearlong collaboration whereby they worked together to interrupt normative pedagogical practices regarding gender, sexuality, and interrelated identities within the context of a second-grade classroom. Bridging the typical disconnect…

Despite a recent increase in the number of studies examining diversity in a contemporary society in relation to gender/sexuality, family, culture, and bilingualism; no study has investigated the intersections of these four areas. The current study discusses the results of an empirical study that explored how discussions about books depicting…

"Strong Black Girls" lays bare the harm Black women and girls are expected to overcome in order to receive an education in America. This edited volume amplifies the routinely muffled voices and experiences of Black women and girls in schools through storytelling, essays, letters, and poetry. The authors make clear that the strength of…

This research investigates whether and how two fundamental environmental factors--harshness and unpredictability--interact in regulating child and adolescent development, informed by life-history theory and drawing on data from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N =…

This meta-analysis reviewed 82 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions involving 97,406 kindergarten to high school students (M[subscript age] = 11.09 years; mean percent low socioeconomic status = 41.1; mean percent students of color = 45.9). Thirty-eight interventions took place outside the United States.…

How might Life Skills be conceptualised in the Foundation Phase of schooling when a tradition of feminist literature has revealed the regulation, denial and the silencing of both gender and sexuality in early childhood? This article presents one Grade 2 teacher's perspective of addressing sexuality education in an impoverished township primary…

The 2020 Pro-Kid Policy Agenda for California is the comprehensive roadmap at the state level to ensure that all children have the necessary supports to reach their full potential. California has an obligation to tear down the structural barriers to all kids, especially kids of color, from growing up healthy, safe, and ready for college, career,…

The 2020 Census risks undercounting thousands of young Colorado children, depriving communities of federal funding and political representation for the next decade. Children under age 5 are more likely to be missed by the census than any other age group, with children of color, non-English speakers, and kids living in high poverty communities at…

Responses to AIDS have often neglected children. Drawing on a qualitative study of young children aged 7-9 years, this paper draws attention to their understandings of HIV and AIDS. It is argued that young children are able to give meaning to the disease in ways that link to their social contexts, where gender inequalities and sexual violence are…

Twenty-five years since the onset of HIV/AIDS, young people aged 15-24 now make up half of new HIV infections. This paper advocates for comprehensive sexuality education as an effective panacea to reverse this, with teachers stepping up and embracing their role as sexuality educators. The exploration of this challenge is informed by a small-scale…