Bodies displayed on walls: are children’s bodies represented in an inclusive way in the pictures on the walls in their early childhood educational environments?

Abstract

The messages conveyed by visual representations in the early childhood education (ECE) environment are critical to ensuring the success of inclusive practices. Given that anti-bias education permeates and affects everything which takes place in ECE institutions, the challenge for early childhood educators is to think creatively about how classroom walls can be used effectively as part of an educational environment rather than for purely decorative purposes. Our research aimed to examine, through a content analysis of the illustrations, the representation of the body taking into account the different categories as they are portrayed on nine different ECE classroom walls in Spanish public schools. Results show that the ECE walls are teaching gender equality to young children, with no single predominant role for girls or boys, but that they are not contributing to children learning about corporal diversity related to disability and ageing.