ECE6003 Portfolio Piece: Gender Equality in Early Childhood Education

This report presents a review of the children's book "No Difference Between Us" by Jayneen Sanders, focusing on its representation of gender equality as a contemporary social justice issue within early childhood education (ECE). The book uses the characters Ben and Jess to explore gender equality, respectful relationships, self-esteem, empathy, tolerance, and acceptance among children aged birth to 8 years. Observations during a read-aloud session revealed varying reactions from children, emphasizing the importance of visual learning and open-ended discussions to address their experiences and viewpoints. The learning experience plan incorporates a gender equality environment with activities, materials (books, pictures, toys), and open-ended questions to promote respectful relationships, empathy, and tolerance. The report highlights the critical role of early childhood education in shaping gender roles and reducing violence against women, concluding that educators can utilize such resources to promote gender equality and address inequalities from an early age. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

ECE6003 Learning Experience Template
Name of Experience: Portfolio Piece
Children’s ages: Birth to 8 years of age
Number of children: 50
The book:
The book that is being selected in order to illustrate the contemporary social justice issue
is “No difference between us” which is based upon the social issue i.e. gender equality
with respect to self esteem, empathy tolerance and acceptance among the society.
The title of the book is itself No difference between us which was written down by
Jayneen Sanders and illustrated by Amanda Gulliver. The book has been published by
Educate 2 Empower (MeriPustak, 2022).
Issue represented in the book:
Gender equality is also refers to sexual equality which illustrates the equal ease of access
to resources as well as opportunities regardless of gender which also involves the
economic participation, decision-making as well as the state through which one can
value different behaviours, needs, aspirations and other significant things irrespective of
their gender. This has become a social justice issue from past many years which involves
all concerns related to men and women lives along with situation within the society, the
ways in which they correlate, their activities along with reaction towards the changes in

policies. The book is highly based upon the modern social justice issue of gender
equality which helps to teach children about the gender equality, feelings, respectful
relationships, choice, self-esteem, tolerance, empathy and acceptance of things in the
society (Subašić and et.al., 2018). This is a crucial topic to discuss upon as it has serious
psychological and serious impacts or effects over people and specifically the children's
which includes high level of stress, depression, anxiety issues and sometimes even post-
traumatic stress disorder.
The book is based upon the two individual characters named as Ben and Jess. Ben is a
boy and Jess is a girl through which the book author beautifully illustrated the picture
book and sets out to explore with young children gender equality and respectful
relationships irrespective of gender.
What do you notice when you read the book aloud?
At the time of reading this book in front of children s, there are various kinds of
reactions that had been noticed by me such as there are few children who showed their
surprising reaction as according to them such type of things even do exists within the
society. I know that it is all because of the fact that they are very small and having very
fewer experiences regarding the same. Children are visual learners and with this book
the appropriate match creates among the text and illustration will assist the children's to
understand that we are humans and thus each and every one has their own specialised
feels, hopes and dreams (Biroli, 2018). The gender identification should be and needs to
be irrelevant. Throughout the whole activity, I asked varied open-ended questions to
children's so that they have an opportunity to talk about their own and personal
experiences along with allowing them to share their view points over the same. At the
time of explaining things, I saw that there are some children who somewhat face such
issues as the book consists of few sentences which are really very general to hear from
any person.
Although I have also very much feel connected with the story or sentences that has been
shared within the text book in more or less manner.
Plan
Clearly indicate:
Setting – The gender equality environment has been created within the classrooms in

order to promote gender equality among the children's who are coming over there as it
helps them to build their positive perspective from very initial days of their age
(Kalpazidou Schmidt and Cacace, 2019). This has been created by adopting various
games and activities which highly efficient enough to promote respectful; relationships
among each one of them, creates a sense of self-esteem, empathy and equal level of
tolerance and acceptance towards the issues faced by them.
Materials – The material that has been provided to them are related to the activities,
books, pictures, playing sheets, toys, etc. all which helps to promote the gender equality
aspect among them in most successful manner. All such material is highly related to the
book content which is solely based upon promoting the few important issues and aspects
of the society which are related to promote equal amount and level of feelings, choices,
empathy, tolerance level and acceptance stage among the different age group children as
the early childhood learning includes children of age group of 0 to 8 years of age.
In order to promote such activities, the open-ended questions will be used.
Moreover, to provide efficient support through independent play, the activities will be
conducted within the premises which include the cooking activities, cleaning practices,
money calculations activities, etc.
Explain
With playing within the early childhood education center within which the educator is
highly accountable to promote gender equality practices, the children will appropriately
able to engage themselves into the practices which helps them to encourage their
emotions towards each other through which they are easily able to provide respect to
each other along with generate a feeling of respect for self as well (Allwood, 2020).
Through this, they are becoming capable enough to raise their voice against social
justice issues that might face by them in their near future terms. All such things provide
them courage to deal with such pessimistic actions in fruitful manner.
Connect
Early years are the most critical time when gender roles and stereotypical notions to be

masculine or feminine are shaped among the mindset of children's. Thus, there are
endless opportunities for educators to train children at very initial stage through early
year childhood learning to promote such kind of thinking among them (Nguyen, 2021).
This creates a sense of respect and reduces the violence cases against women within the
society. Such kind of documents are highly beneficial for early age learners because with
the help of such learning documents, the educators are able to fit or applying gender lens
at early years by acknowledge different experiences, inequalities, pressures and
requirement of men and women.
References
Subašić, E. and et.al., 2018. “We for She”: Mobilising men and women to act in solidarity for
gender equality. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(5), pp.707-724.
Biroli, F., 2018. Violence against women and reactions to gender equality in politics. Politics
& Gender, 14(4), pp.681-685.
Kalpazidou Schmidt, E. and Cacace, M., 2019. Setting up a dynamic framework to activate
gender equality structural transformation in research organizations. Science and
Public Policy, 46(3), pp.321-338.
Allwood, G., 2020. Gender equality in European Union development policy in times of
crisis. Political Studies Review, 18(3), pp.329-345.
Nguyen, C.P., 2021. Gender equality and economic complexity. Economic Systems, 45(4),
p.100921.
Online
MeriPustak, 2022. [Online]. Available Through:<https://www.meripustak.com/No-
Difference-Between-Us-Teach-children-gender-equality-respect-choice-self-esteem-
empathy-tolerance-and-acceptance-336866?https://
www.meripustak.com&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI877bhNLe9wIVVAQrCh1Jbwm7EA
QYBCABEgLf2fD_BwE>.