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.

Analysis of gender, age and disability representation in music education textbooks: A research update

“…Our findings showed that of the total characters represented in the illustrations from the ME textbooks across both periods of time, there were only 24 people with disabilities: nine before 2006 and 15 afterwards (Table 3). These results are consistent with those found in preschool textbooks (Martínez-Bello & Martínez-Bello, 2016; Martínez-Bello & Martínez-Bello, 2017), in primary physical education textbooks (Martínez-Bello & Molina-García, 2016), and in primary social sciences textbooks (Terrón & Cobano-Delgado, 2008). Although the 1990 Organic Law 1, LOGSE (Jefatura del Estado, 1990), established an inclusive basis for students with disabilities within the Spanish educational system, and this framework was reinforced thanks to the human rights-based approach laid out in Organic Law 2 (Jefatura del Estado, 2006), the representation of disability – and thus the messages transmitted about body diversity – still shows room for improvement within the Spanish musical curriculum.…”

Representation of physical activity domains and sedentary behaviors across categories of gender and disability in children’s TV cartoons

“…Previous research has demonstrated that people with disabilities are under-represented on the walls of early childhood education classrooms in Spain as well as in printed curricular material used in Spanish physical education classes (Martínez-Bello & Martínez-Bello, 2016;Martínez-Bello & Molina-García, 2016). This literature argues that the imbalance in the representation of disability in the various contexts where PA takes place is symptomatic of the broader exclusion of disabled people across society, suggesting that the visual representations in the education context plays an important role in the construction of difference.…”

Perceived movement skill competence in stability: Validity and reliability of a pictorial scale in early adolescents

“…One limitation in this study is the lack of multicultural representation in the depicted pictures. The images depicted Caucasian boys and girls which is a narrow perspective in terms of the physical characteristics, race, and/or ethnicity of the world's population 43 . However, it is also not possible to have a “generic” appearance in a picture, as inevitably the figure will reflect one ethnicity more than another according to the way the eyes, hair, and skin color are drawn 44 .…”

“…However, it is also not possible to have a “generic” appearance in a picture, as inevitably the figure will reflect one ethnicity more than another according to the way the eyes, hair, and skin color are drawn 44 . An appropriate representation in terms of diversity of physical characteristics, race, and/or ethnicity can help to promote social respect and normalize multiculturalism 43,45 . As a result, future studies should analyze not only evidence of construct validity of scores of the three factors PMSC including locomotion, object control, and stability skills as a pictorial global scale capturing each component of fundamental movement skills, but also the influence of depicting individuals with particular physical characteristics from diverse races and/or ethnicities within the one scale.…”