Where does research stand today on gender and gender equality in ECEC in the Scandinavian countries and where to go from here?’

This paper is part of a PhD-project that I am working on at the Roskilde University in Denmark. Theoretically and methodologically, I am interested in gender from a child perspective. The questions I am trying to answer is rooted an interest in how and when gender as a social category becomes significant in the relationship between children and between children and professional staff and when and how activities and materiality are gendered in an institutional context. Theoretically I follow Butlers critique of what she terms ‘the heterosexual matrix’ and view gender as being socially constructed and being something that is done rather than being an essentialized given.
By providing an overview of the existing peer reviewed ethnographic research done in Scandinavia during the past ten years I am investigating how gender is analyzed methodologically and theoretically within the field of ECEC. My aim has been to uncover what has already been done and what is still to be explored.