Playing, teaching and caring: generative productions of gender and pedagogy in/through early years assemblages

This chapter develops the notion of posthuman feminist pedagogy to explore gendered productions in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England. The current ECEC workforce is predominantly female, seen as deficient in key skills and qualifications, performing a role with young children which has been equated to ‘mothering’. The chapter is divided into two parts: the first part initially explores the development of ECEC professional roles, the second part considers the ways in which gender development for children has been theorised in classrooms and how this may influence views of working with young children. Building on previous work on feminist pedagogy, it discusses how posthuman modes of thinking can provide alternative visions for posthuman feminist pedagogy, which is developed further in the second part of the chapter. By employing the concepts of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s assemblage and Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory, the chapter suggests a move beyond binarized thinking to a more expansive and generative view of playing, teaching and caring in ECEC. These theorisations are exemplified through two vignettes, which illustrate how material and social relations reveal how gender is produced, enacted and mediated in ECEC classrooms.