Le jardin d'enfants et la construction du genre

Rapport de stage Société & moeurs Sociologie

Date de publication :

15/06/2009

Langue :

Anglais

Format :

.doc

Nombre de pages :

6 pages

Niveau :

grand public

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0 fois

Avis client :

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Sommaire :

Sommaire

Methodology
1. Sources of information and field site
2. The methodological tools
3. Fieldwork's difficulties
Findings
1. Differences in the way children are playing
2. Differences in teachers' expectations and behaviors regarding boys and girls
3. Interactions and socialization as tools of the gender construction

Résumé :

I chose to study the links between nursery schools and gender construction because I wanted to show how this institution plays an active role in the representations children have of their social role as boy or girl.
As my research is mostly about the toys and the games of the children in the context of the school, I decided to circulate between the different classrooms in order to observe as much as possible the children during their "free time" and their interactions with the teachers. I also chose to study some of the more supervised activities because it allows me to look at the so-called "differences" between the qualities of the boys and the girls and how the teacher influences and even sometimes creates them. I think this is only on this point that my experience on the field changed my question because I do not take into account the fact that even in more supervised activities there is something which can be part of the gender construction, especially in the teacher's behaviors and comments. On the field, I also realized that, in nursery school, there are not only the teachers who play an active role in this gender construction as their assistants interact as much as them with the children. Thus, I also had to observe their behaviors, their comments and their relationships with the pupils. However, I only interviewed the teachers because I think that the behavior of their assistants mostly depends on their behavior and their instructions.

My point here will be to show that even if nursery school is supposed to be "neutral" and asexual, it is actually an institution which contributes to the gender construction, because of the teachers behavior, but also because of the interactions between the children who already know, to some extend, what does it means to be a boy or a girl in our society.