Prengel (2019) and Kuhn (2021) note that a broad current of "diversity education" has emerged internationally, bundling pedagogical approaches that address differences on a general-universalist level. "Diversity education," "diversity pedagogy," and "inclusive pedagogy" are used interchangeably, and diversity is often used as a basic term. Accordingly, educational debates usually no longer focus on singular categories of social difference; rather, there is an agreement that education is characterized by a variety of diversity dimensions that can become pedagogically significant. In this context, debates about social differences such as gender in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Germany have experienced numerous impulses and further developments that affect the scientific field of childhood research, curriculums, and pedagogical practice in ECEC. Walgenbach (2014, 2021) therefore states a change of perspective from difference to difference. Looking at diversity in terms of the political aspects of ECEC, one finds a variety of references but no uniform definitions of what is subsumed under this term (cf. Budde 2015; Kubandt 2016; Meyer 2018). In this context, results from two sub-studies on the relevance of gender and diversity in the field of early childhood are presented. First, results from a qualitative interview study with early childhood educators are presented, and second, results from a document analysis of early childhood curricula in the context of educator training from the 16 German states.
In both studies, the central research question was how gender and diversity are constructed and with which meanings this is linked. The theoretical framework of the studies is formed by social constructivist approaches, which do not understand social differences as a given fact in an essentialist sense, but rather focus on the process of attribution and relevance setting. The de-ontologizing aspect is characteristic for social constructivist approaches as well as the fact that they primarily or exclusively ask how social reality is constructed (cf. Kahlert 2000). Related processes of doing gender and doing difference are often linked to the concept of practices. Schatzki (1996) defines practices as the place where social things are produced and speaks of "doings and sayings" (p. 89). While the interviews focused on social practices, the document analysis focused on discursive practices (Reckwitz 2008, Fegter/Sabla 2020).
The aim of both sub-studies was to gain an insight into educational policy perspectives and specific pedagogical requirements for dealing with gender and diversity in day-care facilities.

In the interview study, twelve guided interviews with early childhood educators were conducted and analyzed using grounded theory (Strauss/Corbin 1996) and following principles of sequential analysis according to Kruse (2014). Central to the survey was initially the question of the general handling of cross-sectional dimensions in the participants' own everyday pedagogical work. In the further course of the interviews, the focus was placed on the experiences with diversity in everyday pedagogical life in day care centers and which offers are linked to this. In the third and last part of the interviews, the focus was again more specifically on the topic gender. The document analysis, following the empirical approach of Meyer (2018) and Fegter/Sabla (2020), included as data material the education and training plans for the elementary sector of the 16 German federal states as well as superordinate framework plans for the vocational training of early childhood educators. The focus of the analyses was on those passages in which gender and diversity are directly and indirectly ("boys and girls") addressed. The analyses of the interviews as well as the curricula were conducted with the help of MAXQDA. In the sense of grounded theory, categories were formed in both studies, which were then triangulated in a further step.

The findings point out, among other things, that subsuming diverse categories under diversity always entails the danger of de-thematising singular categories. For even if the changed focus on the interplay and overlap of various social differences is to be welcomed, the findings show a tendency and danger that individual categories are only and exclusively subsumed under generic terms such as diversity and no longer seen in their specificities or even completely out of sight. Further, despite an increasing attention to topics such as diversity in ECEC, a clear rejection and turning away from the topic of gender can be observed in both study contexts. In addition, numerous authors (f.e. Meyer 2018; Kubandt 2016; Holtermann 2022) repeatedly point out that the pedagogical consideration of gender in early childhood institutions is very challenging and complex and requires a specific examination of the gender category, which cannot only be done in passing and under a general focus of social differences. Thus, under a sole focus on social differences in their entirety, specifics and special requirements for dealing with diverse categories of difference are lost, which may not only apply to gender. Here, the example of gender points to the complexity of single categories of social difference, which runs the risk of being underrepresented if several categories are subsumed exclusively under generic terms like diversity, and are only focussed in a holistic perspective. Furthermore, the findings from the interviews with the early childhood educators indicate that gender and diversity tend not to be taken into account in everyday pedagogical life if they are defined curricularly as cross-cutting dimensions that should be taken into account throughout.

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