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Because It’S A Girl Cake!: Fostering Dialogue About Gender Identity In Elementary Classrooms, Amy E. Ryken, Niko Wacker

All Faculty Scholarship

In this documentary account, a kindergarten teacher and teacher educator describe our efforts to explore how young children think and reason about gender expression in and beyond the classroom. We describe our ongoing collaboration to develop a framework for teacher-initiated and student-initiated conversations about gender, which often result from students’ spontaneous remarks and questions about gender norms. We explore the question, How can educators create relevant and engaging learning opportunities to invite young learners to discuss gender norms within the classroom? In this paper we share kindergartners’ conversations about gender and three examples of their writing about this topic. We …