Revisiting the 'teachers' gaze': Have we changed how we 'see' gender in early childhood education?

In 1997, Glenda MacNaughton wrote the paper 'Feminist praxis and the gaze in the early childhood curriculum'. In her final paragraph, MacNaughton challenged early childhood educators to revisit the 'gaze' after twenty years, in the hope that "it will not be as possible to find teachers who fail to 'see' gender" (p. 325). By 2014, new theoretical perspectives on gender and education encourage teachers to widen their understandings of gender, and challenge dominant discourses of heteronormativity and heterosexuality (Blaise 2005, 2013; Blaise & Taylor, 2012; Robinson, 2005; Gunn 2004, 2008). This paper explores the implications of this new research for teachers and teacher educators drawing on feminist research informed by poststructuralist theory and its continued application in the context of gender and early childhood education.