Governing gender equality in early childhood teacher education: A case study in Taiwan

Gender equality education has been implemented worldwide. Nevertheless, its implementation in teacher education has often been perfunctory and symbolic. This study conceptualized gender equality not as a universal principle but as a practice continually translated in local cultural settings. Drawing on a cultural studies perspective and the lens of governmentality, this case study analyzed 27 preservice teachers’ gender equality lesson plans and written teacher feedback as empirical data. It investigated how gender equality is concretized through the tension between policy borrowing and local moral order, focusing on the “desexualized” professional culture shaped by Confucian values in Taiwan’s early childhood education sector. The findings reveal that preservice teachers relied on symbolic gender role reversals and spatialized strategies (e.g., safe and private spaces) to mitigate cultural anxiety associated with gender and the body, reducing gender equality to lip service. By contrast, teacher feedback induced cognitive ruptures that unsettled cognitive frameworks. This study argues that gender equality in teacher education is concretized through cultural translation and governmentality, reshaping professional subjectivity.