“Are these girl ladybugs or boy ladybugs?”: An exploratory study on gender in nature-based education

Urban Farm DB summary

An exploratory study examined how gender is communicated, experienced and constructed in nature-based education (NBE), based on 30 hours of fieldwork at one private outdoor preschool and two public elementary school garden clubs. The analysis identified four sites where gender socialization occurs in NBE: materials, spaces, conversations and educators. While gender-coded human-made objects tend to be fewer outdoors, the study argues that environmental educators must be intentional and explicit about curating a gender-decoded learning space, recognizing how gender is constructed by and for children and communicated and experienced, and must foster understandings of gender beyond the binary.