Toward a More Inclusive Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Despite the recent legal advances in affective-sexual and gender diversity, LGBTIQ+ people continue to face discrimination. In education, however, few studies focus on pre-service early childhood education teachers, although addressing issues related to gender and sexual identity can be helpful for young students. This chapter explores the attitudes of pre-service early childhood education teachers towards the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ issues in their teaching, and their perceptions of their initial training in this regard. An online semi-structured interview is used for gathering qualitative data. Findings show that the participants consider that this type of content should be included in their teaching but adapted to the age of the pupils, as it favors equity, promotes positive values, and helps the integration of LGBTIQ+ students. However, participants also reveal that their university training in this area has been scarce and superficial. The study encourages further teacher training in LGBTIQ+ issues.