Challenging South African early childhood development teachers' perceptions and pedagogical practices regarding gender

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Authors

Singh, Renisha
Bipath, Keshni

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Publisher

Routledge

Abstract

To develop gender equality, teacher perception and pedagogical practices need to be challenged. This article sets out to explore challenging early childhood development (ECD) teachers’ perceptions and pedagogical practices regarding gender in South Africa. There is a dearth of research on gender pedagogical practices among ECD teachers. The research methodology employed participatory action research that focused on collaborative learning workshops. Data collection methods were interviews, observations, reflective journals and focus group discussions with 12 ECD teachers. Data was generated in two phases. The first phase revealed that teachers’ perceptions and pedagogical practices of gender needed to be challenged as they were gender biased. The second phase, teachers highlighted the influence of challenging their perceptions and pedagogical practices on gender. Findings revealed that learning environments were more gender aware by challenging teachers’ perceptions and pedagogical practices. The findings revealed that teachers’ development programmes are paramount to gender-equitable transformations at ECD centres.

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Keywords

Early childhood development (ECD), Gender equality, Teachers’ perceptions, Participatory action research, SDG-04: Quality education, SDG-05: Gender equality

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG-04:Quality Education
SDG-05:Gender equality

Citation

Renisha Singh & Keshni Bipath (27 Jul 2024): Challenging South African early childhood development teachers’ perceptions and pedagogical practices regarding gender, Education 3-13, DOI: 10.1080/03004279.2024.2382172.