The purpose of this paper is to investigate how after school teacher's thoughts and beliefs about gender materializes in pupils' free play outdoors. Through the free play, pupils get access to an atmosphere where values are being exceeded and reconsidered in an unconditional way. We have asked ourselves the questions on which way the different ideas of gender create different sorts of climate for finding ones identity in the free play outdoors, how school teachers themselves want to relate to the free play outdoors and what understanding they have of the gender concept.

The theory which is the basis for our study is taken from postmodernist feminism that is about liberation from gender identities and a redesign of the notions of what is feminine and masculine. One of the leading profiles of the postmodern feminism is the philosopher Judith Butler who wrote the book Gender Trouble (2007), from where our theoretical inspiration for our study is taken.

We have used triangulation as a method for our data collection through interviews and non-participant observations. These have been conducted in three schools in southern Stockholm.

Through our results, we have come to the conclusion that there are established notions of how pupils' behavior and needs in the free play outdoors are being influenced based on their gender. Furthermore, we have seen two different ways of how after school teachers can relate to the free play outdoors: the after school teacher who participate as a playmate or the non-participating after school teacher who observe and is available if needed. We have localized two factors that affect of how the after school teachers' understanding of the gender concept materializes in the free play outdoors: teacher ratio and time.