Love and the Nuclear Family in the Kindergarten: Critical Analyses of HeteronormativitieS

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to point to and problematize heteronormativity in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and disrupt patriarchal and normalized knowledge about love and the nuclear family. To rethink social justice in ECEC, I use the concept heteronormativitieS in plural and with a capital S. This is inspired by the work of Rhedding-Jones (2005a, b), as a part of an epistemological critique of the idea of meaning as stable and fixed. Heteronormativity is not a stable concept with a fixed meaning regardless of the context that plays out in a way that can be foreseen by preschool teachers in kindergartens. HeteronormativitieS rather play out in different and surprising ways, and therefore need to be reflected on critically in everyday practice. Children growing up in contemporary Norway have multiple and complex experiences around what it means to be a family, challenging heteronormative assumptions. In this chapter rather than defining what heteronormativity is, I play with what heteronormativitieS can be and how it can play out in ECEC contexts, by looking at how love and the nuclear family is represented in children's books.