Hi Michelle,
It’s refreshing to hear how play in our infant classrooms has progressed and the positive impact the Aistear programme had but I think you maybe right about things reverting to type afterwards unless a sustained and conscious effort is made in schools to actively challenge societal gender norms in all classes. I think your Aistear example shows, introducing the topic of gender can be most impactful with younger children as they’ve yet to fully internalise prevalent societal misconceptions and biases about gender. It’s a more challenging task in the senior classes but one nonetheless is incumbent on teachers to embrace.