This study examines how young children (ages 3-9) make sense of gender through arts-based practices, with particular attention to how they conform to, resist, and reimagine dominant gender norms. Grounded in critical feminist and queer theory, culturally relative pedagogy, and a pedagogy of care, the research positions gender learning as relational, negotiated, and embedded within everyday early years education interactions. Using an arts-based methodology, children engaged with loose parts, drawing, and multimodal expression to represent their understandings of identity. Findings reveal that children actively participate in the social regulation of gender norms (SRGN), often using binary frameworks as initial sense-making tools. However, these binaries were not fixed; children demonstrated agentic shifts through imaginative and artistic exploration, producing moments of ambiguity, resistance, and expanded gender possibilities. The study identifies three key processes—social regulation, artistic-symbolic identity construction (ASIC), and tension between reproduction and reimagination (TBRR)—to conceptualize how gender is both reinforced and disrupted in early childhood contexts. Importantly, the findings suggest that educators play a critical role not by correcting children’s gender expressions, but by engaging relationally within these moments. Flexible, care-based pedagogies that sustain dialogue and imagination can create openings for more inclusive understandings of gender. This research contributes to early childhood education by offering a practical and theoretical framework for integrating gender-inclusive, arts-based pedagogies into everyday practice. It challenges deficit-based approaches and instead positions children as capable meaning-makers, while providing educators with concrete strategies to support equity, inclusion, and diverse identity development in early years classrooms.

Authors:
Michael Martins, Yorkville University, Canada

About the Presenter(s)
Michael Martins is an Ontario educator and researcher focused on early years. He studies how children (3–10) understand gender through arts-based methods, advancing inclusive, care-centered practices that challenge binaries and support equity in classrooms.

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