I have not experienced any situations regarding homophobia and heterosexism in the centers. I think the reasons could be that I work in China and Chinese people are afraid of letting others know if they are gay or lesbian. As a result, I have not encountered any unpleasant or aggressive situations about homophobia and heterosexism. If I get requests from parents to remove books depicting gay or lesbian individuals, I would ask parents why they feel this way, and show them I understand how they feel, but children should be given opportunities to explore different things. I can also provide a workshop for parents to attend, so that they can express their understandings and feelings, and I can also present useful information and knowledge about how children perceive and learn about the world. I would let parents know that exploring this kind of books would not make children become gay or lesbian, but giving children more flexible and broader ideas about gender (Derman-Sparks & Olsen, 2010).
As working in China, I have noticed lots of gender stereotypes in the books, stories, movies, and cultures in China. For example, a lot of Chinese children’s books create girl’s image as doing dishes, organizing the house, cooking, housewives, and create boy’s image as firefighters, policemen, officers, etc. When in the centers, I have heard boys saying, “only girls wear dresses.” I brought this up within a group of boys, and asked them what they thought about this. I had one boy showing disagreement by saying, “I like wearing dresses.” I then continued with this conversation by asking additional questions like presented in the video from this week, to give children more opportunities to think and explore gender issues.
Reference
Course Media, “Start Seeing Diversity: Gender & Sexual Orientation”
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for youngchildren and ourselves. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
