Lately the interest to develop a gender-perspective in preschool has grown in Sweden. The aim of this study is to focus on Svedish preschool work teams understanding of gender and gender-sensitive pedagogy and their descriptions of what they actually do to be gender-sensitive preschools. Studies of gender and children often focus construction of gender in different contexts and studies of institutions where you actually try to work in a gendersensitive way are quite rare. The theoretical framework is gender theory; specifically, poststructural theories of gender and education. Our data consist of four focus group interviews with Swedish preschool teams. The data revaled that the preschool work teams involved the parents in their gender work. We found five aspects of ''new'' expectations for parents concerning gender and equity in the gendersensitive pedagogy.

In this article, some of the discourses concerning ‘gender-sensitive pedagogy’ that circulate in Swedish preschools are discussed. Two guideline documents that circulate in gender- and equity-sensitive projects in preschool are investigated, and the question is asked: What gender-related messages can possibly reach preschools from the guidelines? The method is discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault. Three different discourses were found: the discourse of the preschool institution; the discourse of gender and/or equity; and the gender-pedagogical discourse.