Limitations of this study

In this section, I present and discuss some areas that may limit the findings of this project.

One of the first considerations in this section is whether I have presented the trustworthy account of the project—as I promised in Chapter 5—as this issue relates to the integrity of the data presented. Silverman (2006) argues that the strength of qualitative research data comes from the accuracy of the presentation of the voices of the participants. Throughout this study, I have endeavoured to present an honourable and transparent account of what the participants selected to divulge to me and to the group. Stanley and Wise (1993:150) express the opinion that errors and uncertainties in qualitative research data are in fact ‘at the heart of the research process. In effect these aren’t confusions or mistakes, but are an inevitable aspect of research’. Sending copies of the transcripts to the participants provided opportunities for the data to be refuted, modified or supplemented, thus allowing them the opportunity to question my explanations of what was said. Further, there was an

opportunity for the participants to view my initial interpretations where they could anonymously comment on and evaluate what had been said and contribute any final thoughts to the topic (Appendix 5). Groundwater-Smith and Mockler (2007) confirm that where participants are involved in the verification of data and where procedures are visible, it is then possible to claim that the project adheres to the principles of integrity both in

[151]

fulfilling ethical requirements and presenting an authentic account of the participants’

voices.

8.3.1 Voice

Another area where a possible limitation may exist is the voice of others in data. This is where behaviours, attitudes and the role of others are reported by the participants as influencing the development of gender. The ‘second order’ representations of parents’

attitudes and behaviours cannot be viewed as accurate depictions of the views of the parents, since their behaviours and attitudes are only as and what the participants understand them to signify. However, the views offered do illustrate the participants’

interpretation and judgments of the parents. It is evident that the participants judge the parents to have gendered attitudes towards their children and that it is the parents, along with society, who encourage and teach children to be gendered. In addition, there is a significant lack of report of the children’s voice and responses to gender behaviour in the data. This could indicate that either the children in nursery do not play a role in gendering or, perhaps more likely, that the participants are oblivious to or underestimate the role that children have in regulating and contributing to gender in the nursery. This may possibly be explained by the claim that the children are ‘too young’ (Section 6.3.3) but it could be explained by the supposition that gender is either innate or created by parents and society (see Chapter 6). The issue of voice offers other avenues for further related research but there is a further limitation with regard to ‘voice’ that should be noted. A more extensive and deeper analysis of issues of power and the language of professional power, following the Foucauldian framework adopted here, might have provided further insights and, certainly, more work could fruitfully follow. For Butler (1990:33) gender identity is ‘a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being’ and in the interviews there are indications that participants take gender identity to be just such a ‘natural’ occurrence. The concept of Foucault’s (1980: 39) ‘capillary power’, the ‘point where power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, discourses, learning processes and everyday lives’, deserves further attention than it has received here. I might have extended my analysis in this way and used a Foucauldian framework to provide a deeper analysis of professional power in the nursery, delving deeper into my data but also asking more power related questions of the

[152]

participants. Further work could now allow further exploration of the issues of power which exist amongst EYPs and observation and discussion with children could ask how and when gender, for them, becomes ‘normalized’ and how, by contrast, children

themselves might subvert the regimes of gendered truths that others might seek to impose upon them. This issue of voice will be discussed below as it offers other avenues for further related research.

8.3.2 Toy Survey

The survey responses neither convey why the participants selected the particular toys nor the criteria used to make their choices. However, in broad terms, the survey does identify the toys the respondents associate with boys and girls. These findings are useful for this research as, according to Garrick et al. (2010), it is generally adults who select toys for the nursery. The survey links the respondents’ replies, whether based on what is assumed or what has been observed, to the sex of the child they consider will play with them. Hence if, as the findings in this study indicate, the toy choices made follow traditional gendered lines, then the toys available in the nursery that are chosen by adults may reinforce

particular norms and prescriptions about what toys are played with by boys and girls. This, alongside the data collected during the DGs, signpost findings that have implications for practice, as EYPs may not be aware of either making these choices or the implications of them. However, there are important methodological issues with the survey instrument itself and until these are addressed it is not possible to make any confident or particularly useful claims about the data that survey yielded. The questions were both leading and

insufficiently nuanced. Items set up a series of binary oppositions for example, a ‘blue hoover’ and a ‘pink vacuum’ and therefore were almost destined to receive gendered responses. Response items, too, failed to include categories such as ‘boys and girls play together with this toy’ that would have added a more nuanced, almost inevitably more complicated but realistic, set of data. What were of interest were the responses to the

‘neutral’ items and interviewee explanations of their responses to the survey rather than the survey results per se. If I were to use a similar survey in future research I would make significant changes to it and, perhaps, use it only as a preliminary to discussion and in conjunction with observations of children at play with the toys in the survey.

[153]

Whilst the limitations of this project highlight other possible avenues for research, which will be discussed below, the project’s findings suggest some areas that, if addressed, may improve outcomes for boys and for girls.

Inevitably, as this is a small scale project, the results are limited by the sample size of those involved in the study; nonetheless, this sample of EYPs is a typical cross section of staff from this sector. The results presented here confirm previous research findings and possibly in some small way extend what has previously been found. I therefore add my voice to the wider debate by suggesting that gender is an area that requires further attention in EYs. I now present my findings, which have implications for practice, and suggest changes that may support more gender inclusive approaches and indicate possible areas for improvements in practice.