Nicola Surtees

Supporting inclusion in early childhood settings: some possibilities and problems for teacher education

Aotearoa New Zealand, like other countries, has legislation and policies that support inclusion and promote the participation of all children and families in early childhood education. We might expect therefore to see a culture of inclusion resonating through policy and practice in early childhood settings. There are early childhood teachers who support such legislative and policy goals, who are committed to inclusion, and who are developing more inclusive early childhood services. Yet, it is also evident that discrimination and exclusion is experienced by many. Teacher education plays an important role in supporting inclusion and assisting teachers’ development of knowledge, skills and attitudes that will support them to teach all children. In this paper, we write as a group of teacher educators and demonstrate the challenges we took up to move beyond traditional approaches to inclusive education and to open up theoretically and practically diverse possibilities for thinking and doing inclusion differently in early childhood teacher education.

Teacher Talk about and around Sexuality in Early Childhood Education: Deciphering an Unwritten Code

This article highlights initial findings from a qualitative research study in Aotearoa/New Zealand exploring the discursive production of childrens sexuality in early childhood education. The article draws attention to teacher talk about and around sexuality. Drawing from heteronormative, developmentalist and biological discourses and discourses of children as asexual and innocent, this article shows that such talk acts to normalize or minimize children. Teacher resistance towards and silencing of sexuality, the functions the silences serve and the ways in which silences mark the borders of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ are uncovered. The article suggests that the marking of borders jeopardizes teacher acknowledgement and celebration of difference and diversity. Gaps between the rhetoric of celebrating difference and diversity and the reality of practice are emphasized.

Family Law in New Zealand: The Benefits and Costs for Gay Men, Lesbians, and Their Children

Drawing on interview data from a qualitative study that explored how gay men and lesbians create and maintain family in contemporary New Zealand society, this article highlights both the positive impacts of legislation on these families and the problems that can arise as a result of gaps in the recognition of the realities of some arrangements. The benefits of legal recognition of relationships between lesbian non-birth mothers and their children, the limited legal protection available for donor fathers (men who have donated sperm to lesbians on the understanding that they will jointly share the parenting of any resulting children), and the unintended consequences of their lack of protection for children are of particular concern. This article makes a case for further legislative reform and recommends that more than two parents should be able to be identified in law in some situations.