Queering Home Corner

Abstract

A recent Australian controversy over the representation of a same-sex family on national children's television highlighted the fact that early childhood remains a domain of strongly defended heteronormative family privilege. The authors use this controversial event as a springboard into an analysis of the interplay between the hegemonic discourses of childhood innocence and ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ and as an opportunity to offer a queerer perspective on early childhood. Applying Foucault's ‘heterotopia’ analytic to a set of narrative observations of children's dramatic play in home corner, the authors trace some of the ways in which children both regulate and transgress the gender norms that underpin heteronormative social relations.