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Teaching Acceptance, Empathy, & Civility with Juvenile Literature: Gender & Sexual Orientation

Learning About Gender Diversity

One necessary step to positively support the development of a young child’s gender identity is understanding distinct yet interrelated aspects of gender: assigned sex, gender role, gender identity, gender expression, and sexuality.

Historically and currently, a binary perspective — meaning only two options — on being female or male has prevailed in the United States and many other societies, with proscribed sets of rules of behavior, dress, and roles for males and females. Current thinking reveals a more complex and nuanced understanding of gender development that goes beyond a binary approach and casts greater light on how expectations of traditional femininity and masculinity limit children’s development.

— Excerpted from Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards.

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Book lists

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