A Melbourne researcher is leading the call to bring education about marriage equality and gender into preschools across Victoria.

In a recently published paper , Dr Kylie Smith – a research fellow at Melbourne University and contributor to the Victorian education curriculum – has called for classrooms to challenge entrenched ideas about “gender and sexuality identity formation”.

“It is imperative that we draw on anti-bias principles in the classroom to challenge stereotypical beliefs about being ‘male’ and ‘female’,” Dr Smith wrote.

“[We should]’ teach children about what is fair and unfair about how children include and exclude each other based on gender and sexuality related to themselves and their family.”

Dr Smith has noted how some educators are limited by their perception of young children as “innocent and in need of protection from the evil, adult world”.

She believes this has prevented them from addressing the fact those very same children may unwittingly behave in “sexist or homophobic ways”.

Dr Smith claims childhood educators should “push back on dominant discourses”, challenging inherent biases and opening up “possibilities for children to imagine different futures that represent their identity performances”.

Her paper comes in the wake of the controversial Safe Schools Coalition, criticised by some for having an LGBTI agenda.