INTRODUCTION: Matters of Gender and Childhood; Gender and Childhood Matters

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Childhood explores the diversity of children’s gender identities, expressions, and embodiments across historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. This volume brings together an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars and practitioners to interrogate how historical, institutional, and cultural forces have shaped children’s relationship to gender, the pivotal role children have played in the construction of gendered categories, as well as children’s responses to these forces and constructions. The book is divided into six sections that explore: historical and contemporary cases where children’s gendered expressions and/or embodiments have resulted in pathologization and harm; issues impacting trans, non-binary, and queer youth; how children’s relationship to gender has been crucial to securing national allegiances and ideal future citizens around the globe; how children’s relationship to gender is shaped by material and digital cultures, as well as how children negotiate gender in these spheres; how educational and literary spaces are expanding how gender is represented and explored across cultural contexts; and how adults—from publishers to parents to practitioners—can challenge notions of childhood that expand possibilities for interacting with and approaching issues of childhood, gender, and sexuality.