Social Justice And Equity Issues In Young Children

Introduction In early childhood education programs, there has been limited incorporation of the social justice and equity issues faced by gay and lesbian people. This is largely due to the perceived view hold by many educators and parents about the irrelevance of sexuality discussion with young children. However, as suggested by Australian Human Rights Commission (2014), eighty percent of homophobic bullying occurs at school and has a profound impact on their well-being and education; around sixty-one percent of homosexual young people said they experienced verbal abuse because of their sexuality, while eighteen percent reported experiencing physical abuse. Robinson and Diaz (2006) also suggest that discrimination toward non-heterosexual

Educators have a critical role in creating positive learning environments in which all individuals can fell supported, included and affirmed about who they are (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the Council of Australian Governments [DEEWR], 2009). Educators are also involved in a boarder role in fostering social justice within the communities in which they live and teach (DEEWR, 2009). Thereby, in this assignment my focus is about discussing the relevance of incorporating discussion of sexually and gay and lesbian equity issue with young children as well as developing understandings of how children’s sexuality is constructed by drawing on sex roles and socialization theory and feminist post-structuralism theory.

Is the discussion of sexuality irrelevant to young children? Robinson and Jones Diaz (2000) highlights that many early childhood educators believe that the responsibility of discussing sexuality issues is on secondary teachers who work with teenagers, not on them. This suggests that many early childhood educators perceive the discussion

Children learn a lot about gender and sexuality from their everyday experience in the early childhood settings. If we look through the process of how children’s gender and sexuality is constructed in their daily lives through the lens of sex roles and socialization theory, we will see that gender is socially constructed process and children are actually ‘trained’ to take up particular sex-role behaviors in their daily living. According to the sex roles and socialization theory, the biological basis of gender difference is assumed, naturalized and fixed; children are taught the ‘roles’ that are related to ‘real’ biological differences identified in male and female bodies and dispositions (Robinson & Diaz, 2006). In terms of sexuality construction, educators and parents who follow this theory will have the presumption that children are born to be heterosexuality and their sexuality must align with their gender, that is boys can only likes girls and girls can only like boys. Criticism for this theory is that it does not recognize children’s active role in sexual identity construction (Robinson & Diaz, 2006). Children are socialized to take up the stereotypical behaviors and roles associated with their gender. Children have no choice in deciding their sexual