A Story of the ‘Kitchen Furniture’ in ECEC—Challenging Norms and Ideas Around Gender and Play

The Swedish National Curriculum for Preschools states that “the environment in the preschool should inspire and challenge children to broaden their abilities and interests without being constrained by gender stereotyped perceptions”. The aim of a three-year research and development (R&D) project was to both analyse and recreate early childhood education and care (ECEC) units’ indoor spaces, aiming at creating an indoor educational environment that would be socially inclusive and norm-aware, and support preschools to fulfil their curricular assignment around gender equality. The aim of this article is to present a specific process for challenging the norms around certain indoor play places and spaces as well as pieces of furniture in ECEC settings that risk reproducing gender norms. This aim was achieved through a social semiotic multimodal gender analysis of so-called “kitchen furniture”, as a well-established, commonly occurring space in ECEC. The process of how this was challenged is presented in this article. A gender analysis of what affordances for play this kitchen-focused piece of furniture gives, and how it can be recreated, was conducted. The introduction of more inclusive furniture to the ECEC units, through creating and building a play trolley, could affect children’s play in a more inclusive way. The analysis addressed both this idea and teachers’ self-initiated move of the piece of furniture within the ECEC unit. The process was performed with a multidimensional perspective of understanding play as a combination of children’s meaning-making and the affordances of both relationships and the environment.