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According to International and European Law, teachers are encouraged to analyse, challenge and to help to eliminate sexist stereotypes and distortions in curricular materials. We aimed to characterize and compare the efficacy of implementation of the gender equality-based approach in the Spanish educational system, through a content analysis of the illustrations in music education (ME) textbooks following a coding scheme constructed by the research team according to guidelines from previous studies about the depiction of women and girls in ME textbooks during two periods of Spanish democracy: before (1992–2005); and after (2006–2015). Our major findings were: (a) female characters were under-represented in both time periods studied; (b); the stereotype of women as amateur but not professional musicians is not perpetuated in the current primary ME textbooks; (c) both children and adults independently of gender were portrayed interacting with others; (d) despite the fact that women teachers are actively participating in schools, ME textbooks do not faithfully reflect that reality; and (e) the virtual absence of females and males with disabilities suggests that this aspect of inclusion is still pending. Notwithstanding, ME textbooks printed after 2006 tended to challenge some traditional stereotypes pertaining to how females and males think, play and act within the musical world.

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To our knowledge, no studies have used Bourdieu's theoretical contributions to frame investigations on how early childhood education (ECE) teaching materials construct body differences in a way that justifies gender inequality. For Bourdieu, the power to classify and grant properties and signs to subjects, does not reside only in the power to impose, but also in the degree to which the vision is anchored within reality. Therefore, the aims of this study is to assess the representation of the body in the curricular materials of ECE classrooms in 10 public centers, by means of quantitative content analysis and to provide, using Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework on the construction of the body, a qualitative critical analysis of the gendered discourses on the construction of the body that the visual depictions of the bodies transmit in ECE classrooms based on the perceptions of a group of ECE educators and students. Our results show that these images do not represent children as individuals, but rather as subjects with socially constructed labels that favor stereotypical roles. Both teachers and students relate their own training with the curricular practices they perform in their classrooms suggesting that visual representations are both abstractly embedded into institutional practices as well as practically integrated into educational work through curricular materials. In conclusion, they recognize that the fight against taxonomies and labels with which the body is constructed is a process linked to the identity and autonomy of the agents who are participating in education.

To our knowledge, there are no published studies that describe the physical activity (PA) levels and objectively measure them through accelerometry in toddlers (2–3 years old) attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aims of this study were two-fold: (a) to analyse toddlers’ PA levels and sedentary behaviour (SB) during school hours in ECEC institutions, as well as the rate of adherence to specific recommendations on total PA (TPA) and moderate–vigorous PA (MVPA); and (b) to evaluate the characteristics correlates (age, gender, and body mass index –BMI) of young children and the school environment on toddlers’ TPA, light PA (LPA), MVPA, and SB during school hours in ECEC institutions. PA was evaluated with ActiGraph accelerometers. The main findings were that: (a) toddlers engaged in very high amounts of TPA and MVPA during ECEC hours; (b) girls and boys displayed similar levels of LPA, TPA, and SB, while girls had lower levels of MVPA, compared to boys, and younger toddlers were less active than older ones; (c) BMI was not associated with PA of any intensity or SB; (d) playground and classroom density were not associated with higher levels of PA of any intensity, though classroom density was associated with SB. These ECEC institutions provide and challenge the new COVID-19 scenario, as well as supportive environments for toddlers’ PA.