Abstract
Despite the recent legal advances in affective-sexual and gender diversity, LGBTIQ+ people continue to face discrimination. In education, however, few studies focus on pre-service early childhood education teachers, although addressing issues related to gender and sexual identity can be helpful for young students. This chapter explores the attitudes of pre-service early childhood education teachers towards the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ issues in their teaching, and their perceptions of their initial training in this regard. An online semi-structured interview is used for gathering qualitative data. Findings show that the participants consider that this type of content should be included in their teaching but adapted to the age of the pupils, as it favors equity, promotes positive values, and helps the integration of LGBTIQ+ students. However, participants also reveal that their university training in this area has been scarce and superficial. The study encourages further teacher training in LGBTIQ+ issues.
TopIntroduction
It appears unquestionable that recognizing and understanding the differences that exist in societies is an essential task for acknowledging the rights of the people who are part of them and contributing to their integral development as individuals, citizens, and human beings. Among the diversity of aspects that characterize people and that may vary from individual to individual, it is worth highlighting gender and sexual identities, understood as the set of aspects of a person’s individuality in relation to their felt internal and individual experience of gender (which may correspond with the sex assigned at birth) and their emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to other individuals (Koenig, 2019). However, there is controversy around these two aspects, which despite their essential nature in people’s lives seem to arouse reticence in certain social sectors and cultural and geographical contexts. In this regard, in December 2022, there are still a total of 68 states with anti-LGBTIQ+1 laws (Erasing 76 Crimes, 2022). In the European context, there are not any specific laws in effect against homosexuality or the LGBTIQ+ community, although there is legislation criminalizing certain related aspects. For instance, in 2013, Russia enacted The Censorship Propaganda Legislation (Russian Parliament, 2013), which prohibits any positive mention of homosexuality in order to protect minors from information that –according to the homophobic sector of the Russian society– promotes what is considered a denial of traditional family values. Similarly, Hungary passed an anti-LGBTIQ+ law in 2021 aiming at banning positive references to homosexuality and restricting minors’ access to any information concerning transsexuality (Hungarian Parliament, 2021). Particularly interesting in this regard is the study carried out by Palacios-Hidalgo and Huertas-Abril (2021) comparing the opinions of teachers working in countries of the European Union with those of teachers from other contexts regarding the integration of sexual and gender identity and diversity in education. The authors show that the fact educators from European countries are more positive than their counterparts in this sense may be a reflection of the discriminatory ideologies and practices faced by the LGBTIQ+ community in some parts of the globe. In any case, although there are worrying threats to the LGBTIQ+ community in many countries around the world, international reports are optimistic about the global progress that has been made in recent years in terms of equal marriage and identity change for trans people, among others (cf. ILGA World et al., 2020; Mendos, 2019; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
ECE: Early Childhood Education.
Sexual Identity: Also known as ‘sexual orientation’, it refers to one’s emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to individuals regardless of their gender ( Koenig, 2019 ).
Queer Pedagogy or Education: It entails a way of teaching that challenges societal components related to gender and sexuality that alienate and/or exclude queer individuals, and that promotes the visibility and respect for the LGBTIQ+ community and the creation of a safe educational space for all teachers and students ( Britzman, 2012 ).
LGBTIQ+ Issues: It refers to topics related to the reality of the LGBTIQ+ community, including aspects concerning gender and sexual identity.
QLF: Queer Literacy Framework.
Early Childhood Education: Pre-primary education, including students from (generally) 0 to 6 years old.
Gender Identity: It refers to one’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth ( Koenig, 2019 ).
Queer Literacy Framework: A framework developed by sj Miller (2016a) AU106: The in-text citation "Miller (2016a)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. intending to help literacy teachers learn “how to recognize, honor, and affirm trans* and gender creative youth” in their classrooms (p. 7).