Constructing men who teach: research into care and gender as productive of the male primary teacher

Abstract

This paper argues that in order to begin loosening the ties that bind care and gender in primary education, we need to re-examine the knowledge sought and found by educational research about teachers. The focus is primarily on how we understand men who teach. Through an examination of two scholarly texts -Ashley, M., and J. Lee [2003. Women Teaching Boys: Caring and Working in the Primary School. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham] and King, J. [1998. Uncommon Caring: Learning from Men Who Teach Young Children. New York: TCP]-I argue that we must be mindful that our research can effectively produce and reiterate common-sense understandings of men that binds them to the hegemonic masculine ideal. It is argued that mixed-method qualitative research that untangles the layers of context influencing the lives of men who teach is important. The paper also suggests that the study of male teachers' emotions, as at once individual and social, and private and public, can disrupt the rational-emotional binary that cements care to gender and reveal new configurations of the gender order.

Backlash against male elementary educators

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“A foundation of teachers’ professional identities, as well as their contemporary working conditions, is gender” (Pulsford, , p. 215).

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‘Who cares?’ Gender, care and secondary schooling: ‘Accidental findings’ from a seclusion unit

“…Therefore, seclusion was a gendered school landscape, involving gendered expectations about care, nurture and emotional labour (O'Brien, ; Pulsford, ). This is perhaps unsurprising, given that gender is central to caring throughout the education sector (James, ; Milligan & Wiles, ; Rogers & Weller, ).…”

I want to be a scientist/a teacher: students' perceptions of career decision-making in gender-typed, non-traditional areas of work

“…This might have helped them to overcome some of the barriers men encounter when they choose a gendertyped profession. Significant others' references to gender stereotypes are, as other studies have revealed, one of the most powerful factors that can deter particularly male adolescents from choosing a non-traditional career (Simpson 2004;Phipps 2007;Pulsford 2014).…”

“…The reluctance of men entering the field of teaching has traditionally been linked to the debate around 'feminisation' and 'masculinity' of schooling. From a feminist and constructivist perspective, masculinity is a social construction in a constant state of flux where teachers are constantly negotiating 'becoming and being' a male teacher in a female-dominated profession (King 1998;Francis 2008;Haase 2008;Pulsford 2014). Historically, elementary school teaching has never been an attractive option for working-class men due to the construction of masculinity that is strongly related to the importance of physical labour in opposition to intellectual work (Skelton 2012).…”

“…While this body of research particularly focuses on the individual perspective, a considerable number of qualitative studies based on post-structuralist, feminist and cultural theories have proposed to broaden the focus and investigated the influence of academic culture, the structures on (STEM) students' participation in a subject and the characteristics of the discipline, including discourses on the nature of science (Henwood 1998;Clegg, Trayhurn, and Johnson 2000;Phipps 2007). As for the field of teaching, qualitative studies based on feminist and constructivist theories focus on the structural perspective of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' (Becky 2010;Skelton 2012;Pulsford 2014). These different approaches will be described in the next chapters.…”