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"What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs": Responding to Sex, Gender, ... Blaise, Mindy Journal of Research in Childhood Education; Summer 2009; 23, 4; ProQuest pg. 450

Journal of Research in Childhood Education 2009, Vol. 23, No. 4

Copyright 2009 by the Association for Childhood Education International

0256-8543/09

"What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs": Responding to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in the Early Childhood Classroom

Mindy Blaise Monash University

Abstract. This paper is based on data generated from a qualitative study of gender and sexuality in a kindergarten classroom. Postdevelopmental perspectives of sex, gender, and sexuality are used to show how young children are constructing gen- der and heterosexual discourses in the early childhood classroom. Drawing from feminist poststructuralism and queer theory, theoretical tools are used to examine children's play outside of development. Taking a postdevelopmental stance towards gender, sex, and sexuality enables the creation of proactive, rather than reactive, strategies for responding to young children's identity construction.

It is a busy morning in this kindergarten classroom, and 5- and 6-year-olds are engaged in a range of play activities. Chil- dren are playing at learning centers that have been set up by their teacher, Renee. Maggie and Mary are at the back of the classroom, near the cubbies, and appear to be deep in conversation as they look inside of a backpack.

I am sitting at the writing table, amid all of this action, preparing for another day of research. For over six months, I have

Author's Note: The author would like to acknowl- edge that this research was funded in part by a Spencer Small Research Grant. An earlier version of this article was presented at the SIG: Early Education and Child Development Busi- ness Meeting at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, 2003.

Note: Mindy Blaise is Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University, PO Box 527, Frankston, VIC 3199, AUSTRALIA; mindy. [email protected]

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been exploring with the children and their teacher how gender and sexuality is un- derstood within this classroom. A range of qualitative methods were used to generate understandings about gender and sexual- ity, including field notes; audio recordings of children's play, talk, and everyday class- room routines; audio recordings of informal interviews with children and the teacher; and the collection of student artifacts. As an active participant observer, I spent two hours a day, twice a week, in the classroom observing and taking part in regular class- room routines. While taking my field note- book and audio recorder out of my backpack, I am distracted by loud singing coming from the back of the classroom.

"What a girl wants, what a girl needs ... . yea, yea, yea, one, two, one, two three ... . What a girl wants, what a girl needs, is bea:::u:::ty beyond belief, yea, yea, yea. Let's do it again, let's do it again. One, two, three. . . . What a girl wants, what a girl needs, is bea:::u:::ty beyond belief .... "

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I turn around and notice Mary singing and performing for Felipe and Maggie, and she is doing this gender performance with delight. Mary is moving her hips and shoulders back and forth to the tune, with her eyes slightly closed and a dreamy look on her face. Felipe and Maggie are sitting on the floor, smiling up at Mary and cheering her on. Mary is performing a particular kind of femininity for her peers, as she smiles coyly at Maggie and Felipe, fluttering her eyelashes, while demurely looking down to the ground. She then flips her hair back and runs both hands down the sides of her torso and hips, as if to accentuate her curves and small waistline. Mary finishes by twirling around and blowing a kiss towards Felipe. Felipe responds by smiling, squealing with delight, and exclaiming, "You go, girl!"

Reacting to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality What will determine how adults react to Mary, Maggie, and Felipe's play? Some will have concerns about the sexualization of childhood (Levin, 1998) and the loss of childhood innocence (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998), while others will draw upon "scientific" and Western understandings of child development (Cannella, 1997; Fleer, 1995, Lubeck, 1998) to understand why children are playing in such ways. What- ever their background, it is likely that most adults will either quickly shut the play down or ignore it. The concern that children are sexualized by the media or are too young to be singing these "inappropri- ate" songs implies a belief in childhood as a cherished time of innocence. Shutting down the play is a strategy for protecting children from hearing or seeing play that might be thought of as too sexual and therefore inappropriate for 5-year-olds to take part in or watch. On the other hand, some adults might not be troubled at all by this play, because they do not regard it as sexual. Instead, they see this play as cute. This is a different reaction, but based on the same preconception with childhood innocence. By ignoring this play, children are thought of as asexual beings, therefore

making it impossible for adults to consider this play as a sexual performance. Even if an adult did consider this as sexual play, he or she might rationalize that these children are too young to "really" know what they are doing. These views of childhood are all based on the idea that sexuality hap- pens later, during puberty or adolescence, a time very distant from the early years. Unfortunately, these responses do not take seriously how Mary, Maggie, and Felipe are engaging with each other. They fail to notice the delight and pleasure the children are experiencing while actively drawing upon gender and sexuality discourses to construct images offemininity and mascu- linity, as well as what it means to be a girl and boy in this kindergarten classroom.

Sex, Gender, Sexuality, and Developmentally Appropriate Practice?

What early childhood teachers notice in the classroom and how they respond to children's play are based on their under- standings of childhood, teaching, and learn- ing. In the early childhood classroom, these beliefs are most often informed by develop- mental psychology, and this, in turn, is the foundation for developmentally appropriate practice (DAP; Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). For almost 20 years, a group of scholars, known as the "reconceptualists," have been questioning the usefulness of a knowledge base informed exclusively by developmental psychology (see Grieshaber & Cannella, 2001; Kessler & Swadener, 1992; Mallory & New, 1994). They claim that this modern, middle-class, and Western discipline is biased and, as an individualistic model of child development, it universalizes the child and childhood (Burman, 2008).

Universalizing childhood reinforces the concept of the naturally developing child (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998). This im- age of childhood is found within DAP, and fails to recognize the importance of sex, gender, and sexuality as having an impact on children's life experiences, learning, or development (Blaise, 2005; Browne, 2004; MacNaughton, 2000). Rather than

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continuing to ignore children's sex, gender, and sexuality, this article takes a differ- ent stance. It shows how teachers might respond to sex, gender, and sexuality in the early childhood classroom if these concepts were recognized as important and understood from postdevelopmental perspectives. "Postdevelopmentalism" is a term used by Blaise (2005, p. 3) to broadly define alternative theoretical perspectives that question modernist assumptions of truth, universality, and certainty.

Ryan and Grieshaber's (2004) review of such research in early childhood provides an overview of critical perspectives, show- ing how they have been useful for raising different questions about teaching and learning. More recently, Grieshaber (2008) extends these arguments by encouraging the active interruption of stereotypical early childhood teaching. This can be ac- complished when early childhood teachers push the boundaries of their theoretical and practical knowledges. This article ex- tends these ideas by showing how feminist poststructuralism and queer theory are useful for understanding children's identity construction and transforming practice. Several theoretical tools will be defined and used to examine children's play outside of development. These tools offer teachers proactive, rather than reactive, strategies for responding to young children's gender and sexuality.

Considering Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Children's sex, gender, and sexuality are usually understood through biological or so- cialization understandings of identity. It is common to believe that young children are biologically born with their sex identity and that as they grow and develop, they learn about their gender roles. It is through these interactions with the environment, such as watching television or observing those around them, that children are learning how to be girls and boys. This viewpoint virtually ignores sexuality and maintains the belief that children develop into sexual beings later in life.

These perspectives provide simple ex- planations about children's sex and gender that seem both logical and obvious, and as Browne (2004) explains, because they are read as scientific discourses, they are easy to accept. When teachers regularly see these stereotypes play out in their classrooms, it is hard not to conceptualize sex and gender in these mechanistic ways. For example, it is easy to conclude that Mary is performing a particular style of femininity, because she is modeling what she has seen female singers do while danc- ing on MTV. Some adults might consider her performance "normal" or appropriate, because they believe all girls like receiving attention from others, particularly boys. On the other hand, Mary's actions might not be considered sexual, because she is too young to "really" understand what she is singing or how she is moving her body. And yet, her mother's explanation that Mary has been this way with boys ever since she was baby supports the idea that these are "natural" responses and therefore difficult to refute or question.

Reconsidering Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

The relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality, like the concepts themselves, is usually understood through developmental- ism. These viewpoints believe that children are first born with a sex, then learn their gender, and finally become sexual. Biologi- cal and socialization theories are not the only ways to understand sex, gender, and sexuality. Postdevelopmentalism rejects the idea that gender is simply an expres- sion of sex, or that gender and sex are biological or natural traits that are inside us. Feminist poststructuralism and queer theory are postdevelopmental perspectives that take a critical stance toward taken- for-granted ways of understanding the world, including sex, gender, and sexuality. Foucault (1978) argues that sexuality is neither a fact of life nor something that is natural. Instead, sexuality is considered a constructed category of experience that has

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historical, social, and cultural origins. By rethinking the relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality, it becomes possible to question the belief that children are born with a fixed gender or sexual identity. But- ler (1990) argues that gender is the process through which different human cultures make sense of sexual identity. For Butler, gender is not a noun, but a verb. Therefore, sex, gender, and sexuality are all important for understanding healthy sexuality. By acting out our genders, we make sense of what it means to have a sexual identity and practice our sexuality.

Feminist poststructuralism places gender at the center of inquiry and sees it as a political, dynamic, and social construc- tion. Rather than conceptualizing gender as a trait of individuals that they are ei- ther born with or socialized into, feminist poststructuralism views gender as a social construct that identifies particular acts or performances that are understood to be appropriate to one sex (Bohan, 1997). From this perspective, gender is not a way of being that children learn from others. Instead, emphasis is placed on how gender is constructed through children's talk, ac- tions, and interactions with each other and the social world (Bohan, 1997; Davies, 2003; Thorne, 1995, 1997). Social relationships become vital in the construction of gender and are seen as interactive and inseparable in how gender is constituted. Feminist poststructuralism is also interested in change and therefore positions the teacher not as a passive observer of children's talk and actions, but rather as someone who questions and challenges children's current gender understandings (see Blaise, 2005; MacNaughton, 2000; Ryan & Ochsner, 1999; Sears, 1999).

Queer theory builds on these feminist poststructuralist understandings of iden- tity, and is concerned with heterosexual discourses and how they influence the social construction of gender (Warner, 1993). When gender is viewed as a social activity, performed in normative ways, it becomes impossible to understand gender

except through what Butler (1990) calls the "heterosexual matrix." This matrix should be thought of as a specific framework that produces femininity, masculinity, and het- erosexuality as intelligible. The concept of femaleness or maleness becomes mean- ingless in the absence of heterosexuality. Heterosexuality, as an institutionalized set of power relations, is considered com- pulsory and enforced through rewards for appropriate gendered behaviors and punishments for deviating from the con- ventional or "normal" ways of being either a girl or a boy. This understanding of gender assumes that heterosexuality functions to produce regulatory notions of femininity and masculinity. As a relational concept, particular forms offemininity are produced in relation to and through particular, and highly valued, forms of masculinity. These critiques of heterosexism are not attacks on heterosexual practices, but rather on the discourses of heterosexuality and how they have become embedded into our thoughts and everyday actions (Butler, 1990; Rich, 1980; Sedgwick, 1990). Finally, queer theory discloses how heterosexual prac- tices have been normalized, and thus have become instruments of power, positioning heterosexual relationships as the most valued and acceptable form of sexuality.

Opening Up, Rather Than Closing Down

Feminist poststructuralism and queer the- ory informed my practice as a researcher in several ways. First, it influenced how I understood sex, gender, and sexuality and the kinds of questions I was interested in exploring while researching in the early childhood classroom. Second, it directed what I noticed and considered as impor- tant. For example, I recognized Mary's singing as relevant for understanding how children were actively construct- ing gender identities. Instead of being alarmed by the children's play, I was curi- ous to find out how they understood this song and why they took so much pleasure performing particular forms of feminin-

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ity, masculinity, and sexuality for each other. This curiosity influenced my role as a collaborative researcher interested in challenging gender norms. Rather than closing down this dramatic play, I wanted to open up opportunities for discussion and for reconceptualizing what it means to be a girl or boy. I did this initially by asking Mary, Maggie, and Felipe about the song. Mary happily explained, "Oh, it's about girls wanting boyfriends."

The classroom teacher, Renee, suggested that we use meeting time as a space for sharing this conversation with the entire class. In this classroom, meeting time is a part of the day when issues are discussed as a large group, and an opportunity for me to open up discussions about sex, gen- der, and sexuality with children. Children were seated in a circle around the rug, and I shared the conversation I had with Mary, Maggie, and Felipe. Mary volunteered to sing some of the song. I then asked the class if they had heard this song before and if they knew the singer, Christina Aguilera. From their quickly raised hands, smiles, and shouts of"yeah!" and "all right," it was apparent that they not only knew about the song and the singer, but they were excited and eager to discuss them. Not really know- ing what to expect, or how the conversation would unfold, I initiated and audiotaped the following meeting time. I began by ask- ing the class what they thought the song meant.

Felipe: Well, she's singing about getting boyfriends. All girls want and need boyfriends.

Mindy: Is this true, everyone? Whole class: Yea .... Mary: She is singing about getting lots and

lots of boyfriends, that's what girls want, not just one (putting up one finger).

Mindy: Why do girls want lots and lots of boyfriends? Why is this important?

Kim: First, girls have to get pretty, before they can get a boyfriend.

Mindy: What do you mean? How do girls get pretty?

Kim: Well, pretty is like, you know, it's like looking a certain way, having good clothes, you know, they have to match and everything, and having long hair.

Elena: No. Pretty can be more than just that.

Mindy: What do you mean, Elena? Elena: Well, there are lots of ways you can

be pretty, and I don't think that Christina Aguilera is pretty.

Mary: (Turning her body towards Elena) What?

Mindy: Does Christina Aguilera have good clothes and nice hair?

Kim: Oh yes. She has really, really, really good clothes.

Felipe: No, Christina Aguilera has sexy clothes (laughter from the class) that shows her body off.

Elena: No, no, you don't. I mean (quieter), not everyone has to have boyfriends. I don't think I want a boyfriend.

(Tim and David, who are sitting beside Elena, turn their bodies towards her, watching carefully as she speaks.)

Mary: Well, you can only get a boyfriend if you are pretty.

Felipe: Noooo, you get boyfriends by being sexy (giggles, while looking around).

(The whole class is laughing.) Mindy: It seems like we have some different

opinions here about boyfriends. Mary, do you want to have a boyfriend?

Mary: Yes, and I need, I mean, I want lots and lots of them. The more the better. I want to be sexy like Christina Aguilera.

Elena: Na uh! (Standing up on her knees, looking at Mary.) That's not true. Be- sides, my aunt doesn't have a boyfriend and she is pretty.

(Tim and David are still quietly watching Elena.)

Mary: (To Elena) What makes your aunt pretty?

Elena: Well, she is smart, nice, and she has long hair. . . . And, she doesn't look anything like Christina Aguilera.

Mary: Well, what kinds of clothes does she wear? I mean, what do they look like? Are they cute, pretty, nice, ya' know?

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Elena: They are nice. She wears nice things.

Mary: Does she ever wear bikinis? Elena: Yea. Mary: Well, does she have a boyfriend? Elena: No. Mary: Why not? Elena: Because she doesn't want one. And,

I don't think she needs one either.

From meeting time, it is clear that young children know a lot about femininity, mas- culinity, and heterosexuality. They have strong opinions about what it means to be pretty, to have and need boyfriends, to be fashionable, and to be a part of gendered power relationships. Postdevelopmental perspectives are not only useful for under- standing how children take an active part constructing and reconstructing knowledge about gender and sexuality, they are also useful for creating new ways to respond proactively to sex, gender, and sexuality in early childhood environments.

Theoretical Tools Poststructuralist concepts of language, dis- course, agency, and power are useful theo- retical tools for understanding sex, gender, and sexuality in ways that are not situated in biological or social learning frameworks. These concepts, including heteronormativ- ity, will be discussed in order to further our understanding about children's identity construction and for examining how teach- ers might engage differently with gender and sexuality in the classroom.

Language Poststructuralism asserts that all mean- ing and knowledge are constituted through language, and that language is the key to how we create meaning as socially con- structed individuals. If meaning is created through language, then it is neither fixed nor essential. As a social and political site of struggle, language becomes the site where social meanings and identities about femininity, masculinity, and sexuality are formed and reformed. This is also the space

where these social meanings are open to challenges, redefinitions, and reinterpreta- tions (Weedon, 1997). This understanding of knowledge construction moves away from the belief that children are merely born into their sex or uncomplicatedly learn their gender and sexuality. It posi- tions the child (even the very young child) as playing a significant part in "doing" or producing femininities, masculinities, and sexualities.

In early childhood classrooms, where play and talk is valued and encouraged, this means that children themselves are con- stantly creating and re-creating meanings about gender and sexuality with each other. It is through their talk and interactions with each other that they are constituting what it means to be "girl" or "boy" in that particular place. Sometimes, their talk and actions about what it means to be pretty and sexy reinforce gender stereotypes. This is seen through Kim's statements around girls wanting and needing to be pretty in order to get boyfriends. For Kim, and several other children in the classroom, being pretty is based on a particular form of femininity. Additionally, Mary is performing a highly sexualized form of femininity through her singing and dancing, and Maggie and Felipe are enjoying her song and dance. Maggie's interest in Mary's performance also might be considered a proto-lesbian moment as she desires feminine sexuality. This moment also could be an example of how most of society considers women as sexy, and men simply the audience for the sexiness. While these children are constructing forms of femininity that are based on gender and heterosexual stereotypes, it is also pos- sible to see how Elena's understandings of her aunt's femininity are troubling and reinterpreting gender ideals.

Discourse Discourse is a body of ideas, concepts, or beliefs that become established and ac- cepted as the "truth." These ideas are a theoretical grid of power and knowledge, in which knowledge and power are integrated

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with each other and impossible to separate (Foucault, 1980a). Discourse is a structur- ing principle in the classroom and society, and language is always located in discourse. When combined with social practices, dis- courses constitute knowledges, subjectivi- ties, and power relations (Weedon, 1997).

Discourse is a way of speaking, writing, thinking, feeling, or acting that incorpo- rates particular ideas as truth. For ex- ample, gender and heterosexual discourses provide a framework for how we think about girls, boys, femininities, masculinities, and sexualities. They also carry messages about power and seek to establish a set of hidden rules about which forms of gender are considered "right" and which ones are "wrong." Usually the right way to be a "girl" or "boy" is based on heterosexuality. As a researcher, it becomes possible to locate gender and heterosexual discourses by rec- ognizing the gender rules that the children know and use during meeting time. For example, Felipe thinks that girls must be sexy in order to get a boyfriend, and Mary believes that it is necessary for girls to be pretty. Elena introduces a third gender dis- course when she talks about her aunt being pretty and not having a boyfriend. These discussions show how competing forms of femininity are linked to power and status and are constructed through discourses. For example, when Elena is first talking about her aunt, she lowers her voice, pos- sibly indicating her understanding that this way of doing femininity is not as valued as the kind of femininity that Mary was per- forming. However, when Elena responds to Mary's claim that girls have to be sexy, like Christina Aguilera, she raises her voice, lifts her body, and looks directly at Mary. In doing so, Elena is troubling the current gender and sexuality discourses in this classroom.

Agency The concept of agency is concerned with an individual's ability to make choices, control events, and access power. Accord- ing to Davies (1990, 2003), agency is also

one's capacity to resist, subvert, and change discourses. Agency is not something that individuals possess, but is always produced by the gaps opened up in regulatory norms or through power. Elena's comments about her aunt are an example of her exhibiting agency. Instead of just accepting that all girls need and want boyfriends or that being pretty is all about wearing stylish clothes and having long hair, Elena chooses to value another form of femininity. Another in- stance of children's agency is seen through Mary's performance or when Felipe com- ments about being sexy. All of these chil- dren are showing how agency is produced through the gaps of gender, heterosexual discourses, and power.

Power Feminist poststructuralism draws heavily upon Foucault's (1980a, 1980b) theories of power. From this perspective, power is en- visioned as a process operating in our social world, rather than as something possessed by individuals. Power operates within all relationships and is expressed through dis- course. Therefore, Foucault (1980b) argues for understanding power as something that circulates and at the same time operates to produce particular kinds of subjects. For Foucault and feminist poststructuralists who use his work, "Individuals are the ve- hicles of power, not its points of application" (p. 98). From this perspective, it becomes important to understand how the strategies and techniques of power work, not simply who has or does not have power. Locating how power produces different kinds of girls and boys is relevant for understanding gen- der and sexuality. Meeting time is one place where we can see how children are drawing from heterosexual discourses to regulate what it means to be a desirable girl or boy, and the kinds of relationships that keep these in place. Felipe does this well as he uses his knowledge of "being sexy." At that particular moment, Felipe is constituted as a powerful boy because of his knowledge of heterosexuality.

Foucault (1980b) argues that power and

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knowledge are interrelated and strongly influence each other. Power relations exist within fields of knowledge, or "regimes of truth," which produce and exercise particu- lar forms of power relations. By examining power as a relation and in its local forms, it is possible to understand the ways in which the gendered social order is structured and regulated. For example, how power is operating during meeting time can be seen through what children know about gender and sexuality and their interactions with each other. It is interesting how two boys, Tim and David, quietly watch Elena while she explains what she desires, which is not about being sexy or having boyfriends. Tim and David's silence, in relation to Elena, can represent another moment when power is circulating and Elena is constituted as a powerful girl while publicly challenging the dominant discourse of what all girls want.

Heteronormativity Heteronormativity refers to processes and practices through which ideas about heterosexuality are normalized (Warner, 1993). With young children, heterosexual norms are recognized when their social practices reinforce that there is only one best, right, or "normal" way to be in a re- lationship and that this is a heterosexual one. Heterosexual norms are viewed as regulatory when they encourage children to maintain stereotypical gendered roles. For example, Mary's gender performances can be seen as a heterosexualized one that she is choosing to perform in relation to Felipe, because it is based on the idea that this form of femininity is attractive to a particular form of masculinity. However, Mary was also performing for Maggie, showing how females often perform as much for each other as for males. Failing to recognize this performance would be an example of heteronormativity, because it would assume that only heterosexual performances are possible. Another heterosexual discourse is the expectation or assumption that all girls will want, need, or have boyfriends. These expectations and assumptions limit the

possibilities for both girls and boys. Under- standing gender and children's attachment to stereotypical gendered differences makes it possible to locate how heterosexual dis- courses operate in the classroom and how they enforce heteronormative behaviors. For example, Elena's desire of not wanting a boyfriend is not actively supported by her peers. Instead, some children, like Tim and David, observe and listen quietly, whereas others loudly disagree with this idea and instead believe that all girls want or need boyfriends. Additionally, some children believe that in order to get a boyfriend, girls have to be pretty and sexy.

Responding to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Differently

Grieshaber (2008) reminds us that teachers "can forge through theoretical boundaries, respond to the unexpected, and create the unexpected" (p. 514) in their classrooms. A teacher working within and from postde- velopmental frameworks is in the process of doing such work. This teacher would not disregard Mary's singing as unproblematic or "innocent." Instead, she would be curious as to how these children are understanding what it means to be a girl and boy and how they are actively negotiating gender identi- ties within the confines of the heterosexual matrix. Gender relationships also will take on new meanings. That is, Mary's singing will be noticed as a gender performance that is being done for Maggie and Felipe, and that Maggie's and Felipe's responses to this performance are producing particular forms of femininity and masculinity. If Mary's singing had been ignored or if she was made fun of, this would indicate how this form of femininity was not valued in this particular context. Instead, Mag- gie and Felipe excitedly cheered her on. Particular forms of femininity and mas- culinity were being constructed, affirming behaviors that I would argue are hetero- normative-that is, tending to reproduce heterosexual discourses. Mary's actions are not seen individually, but rather they are situated within the context of these gen-

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der relationships with Maggie and Felipe. Reconceptualizing the dynamic back-and- forth aspects of identity construction allows teachers to see how these children are work- ing together to constitute and contest what it means to be a desirable female and male, rather than simply accepting stereotypical ways of being a girl or boy.

A teacher working from these perspec- tives might see the heterosexual discourses that Mary, Maggie, and Felipe are draw- ing from and actively using to constitute femininity and masculinity. In this case, instead of walking away, she might con- sider intervening in their play. Teacher interventions can take several forms. As a researcher in this classroom, I intervened by first questioning Mary, Maggie, and Felipe's play and then using meeting time to open up the discussion further. Like the teachers in Ryan and Ochsner's (1999) studies, meeting time was used as a site of political action. Not only was I curious about what children knew about these gender and heterosexual discourses, I also wanted to find a way to include a range of perspectives and views into the curriculum. Additionally, I wanted them to be primar- ily the children's views, not mine. Rather than telling children that there are multiple ways to be a girl, the meeting time conversa- tion is meant to open up opportunities for children to debate with each other about gender and sexuality issues. Referring to the meeting time transcript, we are able to see how my presence changed throughout the discussion. Towards the end of the transcript, my questions are no longer driving the conversation about what a girl wants or what a girl needs. Instead, the children are troubling what it means to be pretty and sexy. This does not imply that I am taking a "hands-off' approach to sex, gender, and sexuality. Instead, I am proac- tively provoking the children to raise new questions about these issues. Finally, this example of meeting time implicitly reveals discourses of sexuality as curriculum.

A teacher working from feminist post- structuralist and queer perspectives will

also use what children know about sex, gender, and sexuality to plan in different ways. For example, from this meeting, a teacher might formally plan to document how class members are seeing, understand- ing, and performing gender. This informa- tion can then be presented to families in order to gain their perspectives. Or, the teacher might plan to have further discus- sions with Elena, Maggie, and Mary to find out more about how particular ways of "doing girl" plays out across time and place. Would Mary feel the same kinds of desires performing her song outside at recess when older children are around or performing her song at her grandmother's house? To encourage further dialogue among differ- ent groups of children, the teacher could ask children to try different gender perfor- mances. For example, girls could be urged to perform gender as if they were boys. A discussion with the boys might ensue about these performances.

The transcription from meeting time shows that children are neither ignorant nor nai:ve about what girls want and what they need in current times. They believe in heterosexual desire, and this is evident through their talk and actions. For the most part, they trust that all girls want and need boyfriends, and that getting a boyfriend is mostly about looking a certain way. These understandings about gender and sexuality restrict possibilities for both girls and boys, and they clearly show how heteronormativity is part of the early childhood classroom. In this case, girls are supposed to look a certain way, including having a sense of style, long hair, and being sexy. However, Elena understands "pretty" to be something more than just physical attributes. Elena's tone of voice and body language indicate that her opinions about femininity were important enough that she bravely placed another perspective about gender and heterosexuality into the class- room discourse.

Postdevelopmental perspectives are use- ful for making sense of the complexities of classroom life. In particular, they help the

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field of early childhood understand how children and teachers actively construct knowledge in the classroom. Disclosing the practices and processes of heteronormativi- ty and the role children play in constructing gender and heterosexual discourses implies the necessity for creating new teaching strategies that open up possibilities for do- ing teaching differently. These pedagogies are one possibility for actively interrupting stereotypical early childhood pedagogi- cal performances (Grieshaber, 2008). If gender and sexuality are social, political, and dynamic constructions, then how can the field of early childhood education not respond to this knowledge? What kind of gendered and sexual lives do we want for all children right now? Rather than remaining stuck in developmental frameworks, which lead us blind and helpless in responding to children's gender and sexuality, we need a new paradigm. Postdevelopmental perspec- tives, such as feminist poststructuralism and queer theory, provide us with the tools we need, so we can, like Elena in this class- room community, bravely contest the exist- ing and limited notions of children's sex, gender, and sexuality. By letting Christina Aguilera define what a girl wants and needs, we abandon one of our main roles as teachers-shaping children's futures.

(submitted 7121108; accepted 10/7/08)

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