Based on interviews with teachers and on the observation of their work with girls and boys, this article deals with the gender and power relationships in the process of early childhood socialization and analyzes the strategies that are used to promote the normalization and control of body expressions o girls and boys. In the process of trying to understand how was developed the education of boys and girls who transgressed the frontiers which were imposed on them, we observed how the apparently naturalized characteristics of masculinity and of femininity are the result of many efforts to mark differently the body, the behavior and the skills of these children.
Childhood Education; Gender Relationships; Teacher Practices