To study the school careers of boys and girls from pre-school is one of the
objectives of a study that took place in Santarém (Portugal). With this intention,
in recent years a line of research, training and organization of materials for work
on gender in preschool, has been developed. In this text we analyze some
guidelines of our work presenting some examples of the data collected in
kindergartens on the representations of gender and age (which is to be a man,
woman, boy and girl) of children in preschool. In this work we also pretend to
understand the representations of "good student" and "good student" of
kindergarten teachers and teachers of basic education and their implications in
the boys and girls results. These representations (and, in general, the effects of a
too rigid and differentiated learning, regarding the social roles of boys and girls)
have effects in the children schooling and in how these issues should be worked
in the initial training of health workers in pre-school and basics? We argue that
the examination of the relationship between kindergarten and gender issues is
crucial to understand how these issues are experienced by children and the ways
of action of health staff in kindergarten
