Purpose: To research how conceptions of gender are mirrored in the preschool’s practices and how the preschool teachers treat the children in relation to the conception of gender and age.

Questions at issue: How do preschool teachers treat children in preschool from a gender perspective? How are values and conceptions about gender expressed in the preschools’ practice?

Method: Qualitative methods; observation and interview, discourse analysis, hermeneutics

Main theoretical connections: Social constructivism, feminist poststructuralism, gender system

We have concluded that preschool teachers treat children in preschool based on the expectations they put on the children. These expectations position children into different categories of “masculine” and “feminine”. Gender is expressed in the practice and affect how children relate to one another as well as how the preschool teachers relate to the children depending on their age. We have also been able to see a difference in how children are treated in relation to age. What has been made visible through our observations is that preschool teachers’ treat younger children according to concepts that strengthens the categorization of children. This was accomplished through the emphasis on gender descriptions of people and objects, which positioned children in these categories. This can be interpreted as preschool teachers’ gender categorizations was consolidated through language which is of importance regarding current expectations and values within these groups. Children thus learn to adapt to the different roles they are in preschool, which will later be interpreted as a part of that person's individual character. Teachers in the older children’s group focused rarely or not at all on consolidating concepts but confirmed and thus strengthened the standards that children were already aware of and practiced. This was done by the teachers that among other things tended to keep the children’s groups, which was based on notions that the children are acting by character and not by gender.