Early preschool environments and gender: Effects of gender pedagogy in Sweden

- We compared children in a gender-neutral preschool to those attending other preschools in Sweden.
- Children at the gender-neutral school scored lower on a gender stereotyping measure.
- Children at the gender-neutral school were more willing to play with unfamiliar other-gender children.
- Children at the gender-neutral school were not less likely to notice another person's gender.
- Differences in pedagogy are associated with how children think and feel about people based on their gender.

To test how early social environments affect children's consideration of gender, 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 80) enrolled in gender-neutral or typical preschool programs in the central district of a large Swedish city completed measures designed to assess their gender-based social preferences, stereotypes, and automatic encoding. Compared with children in typical preschools, a greater proportion of children in the gender-neutral school were interested in playing with unfamiliar other-gender children. In addition, children attending the gender-neutral preschool scored lower on a gender stereotyping measure than children attending typical preschools. Children at the gender-neutral school, however, were not less likely to automatically encode others' gender. The findings suggest that gender-neutral pedagogy has moderate effects on how children think and feel about people of different genders but might not affect children's tendency to spontaneously notice gender.