Men in the Nursery Revisited: Issues of Male Workers and Professionalism

Abstract

Professionalising the early childhood workforce in terms of improving pay and conditions of work and employing male workers can be seen as independent trends: there is no necessary relationship between the two. However, when the definition of professionalism is extended to include the scope and quality of practice, the experiences and views of male and female workers may have a contribution to make. This article is based on revisiting a study of male and female workers in childcare centres, analysed in terms of an extended definition of professionalism. It argues that the conditions necessary for changes to practice include developing a reflective approach to practice where debate and curiosity and practice are a constant feature of daily work.

Gender balance in ECEC: why is there so little progress?

“…ECEC remains an almost entirely female workforce' (Van Laere et al 2014, 6). A higher degree of professionalism and better salaries do not automatically lead to an increase of the number of men working in ECEC, as Cameron (2006) and Peeters (2007) concluded before. Research on gender and academization in Germany has shown that the proportion of male students in newly introduced university bachelor courses is not higher than in traditional vocational schools for ECEC workers (Keil, Pasternack, and Thielemann 2013;Rohrmann 2012b).…”

Elementar – Männer in der pädagogischen Arbeit

“…Cameron et al (1999) interviewten 21 ErzieherInnen aus verschiedenen Einrichtungen zu Berufszugängen, ihrer Arbeitssituation und zu ihren Wahrnehmungen von Geschlechterunterschieden im Arbeits-kontext. In der Folge hat die Forschungsgruppe sich für eine bessere Balance der Geschlechter im Arbeitsfeld eingesetzt und weitere Entwicklungen dokumentiert (Cameron 2001(Cameron , 2006Owen 2003 …”

Educating the Future Educators: The Quest for Professionalism in Early Childhood Education

“…Professionalism is a socially constructed concept (Osgood, 2006) and, partly for this reason, the term 'profession' and other derivatives have become problematized (Oberhuemer, 1999). Two of the contributory factors to the problematization are that, as previously stated, there is no universal definition of what is meant by 'professional' or 'professionalism' (Cameron, 2006). The literature describes a cluster of related concepts, which is well illustrated in Brock's (2006) seven dimensions of professionalism in ECE: knowledge, education and training, skills, autonomy, values, ethics, and reward.…”