Kan Batman vara rosa?: Förhandlingar om pojkighet och normalitet på en förskola.

The purpose of this study is to examine the standards of "being boyish". The study focuses on how standards are created, reproduced and renegotiated by children and child carers at daycare centres. The study asks what actions are possible for boys and girls in relation to the standards for "being boyish". The study also examines how girls and boys negotiate standards in contexts where the emphasis is on gender. The study examines how gender is established among children at daycare centres with outset in the understanding that gender is established through social processes.

The study shows that children occupy many different positions during their everyday lives at the daycare centre. Some of these positions are visible and adults and children categorise these as 'girlish' or 'boyish'.  These categories imply that there is a difference in the way in which a child is a boy or a girl. The study emphasises that there are no fundamental differences in the actions and behaviours of boys and girls, but that gender differences appear, among other things, through clothes in specific colours. At the daycare centre, children use their voices, hairstyles, clothes and gestures to negotiate gender. These are important elements in the communication and design of the children's perception of how they are 'girlish' or 'boyish'. It is important for the children to have this association with gender in order to experience that they are being understood and that they are normal. The study also shows that age is of particular importance to the children's gender negotiation process. Gender and age are often articulated in a context such as 'big girl' or 'big boy'.

The data material consists of field notes from observations made over two years at a daycare centre. Twenty children and six child carers were observed in the first year and 17 children and four child carers were included in the observations in the second year. The children were aged three to six years. Both child carers and children were also interviewed.

Hellman, A. (2010). Kan Batman vara rosa?: Förhandlingar om pojkighet och normalitet på en förskola. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, Gothenburg studies in educational sciences, 299.