Primary teaching as a career choice: the views of male andfemale sixth‐form students

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study which examined the factors influencing the choice of primary teaching as a career option among A-level students and how these factors differ between males and females. The views of males were of particular importance given the current disquiet in relation to recent trends in the recruitment of males as primary-school teachers. The paper reports that primary teaching is highly regarded as a career by all sixthformers, in that it is seen as performing a moral service to society, as being mentally stimulating and as likely to offer a high degree of job satisfaction. However, primary teaching is seen as lacking in salary and status. Male sixth-formers are aware that males are in a minority in primary schools and assert the value of a male role in younger children's educational experience. Most are also aware that they may have to confront societal negativity about males working closely with young children. This perceived negativity manifests itself in three ways. Firstly, primary teaching is seen as an occupation already dominated by females; males are much more gender-sensitive when it comes to career choice than are females. Secondly, contemporary male teenage culture sees teaching as inherently unfashionable and males indicate that a desire to enter primary teaching could evoke derision from their school peers. Thirdly, the currency of child-abuse awareness in recent years has made males wary of close contact with young children. Female sixth-formers do not report concerns about any of these factors. The paper proposes that halting the decline in numbers of male primary teachers is a task which requires the intervention and contribution of a variety of agencies and bodies, and suggests that the content and dissemination of career information on primary teaching could be reviewed.

Teaching as a career: a perspective from Hong Kong senior secondary students

“…Unlike previous findings in western countries (e.g. Johnston et al, 1999), but similar to those in China Mainland and Taiwan (see Lo, 1999;Fwu & Wang, 2002), teachers in Hong Kong were not seen as lacking in salary and social status. In addition, Lai et al (2000) also found out the interest in teaching was related to gender, academic results and streams of study.…”

“…In terms of recruitment, the teaching profession fails to attract bright young people (Murnane et al, 1991;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000) and there is an underrepresentation of both qualified minority teachers (Newby et al, 1995) and males in the primary school teaching force (Johnston et al, 1999). The problem is also structural as a number of school subjects are constantly short of teachers with the required subject specialism, resulting in a high percentage of 'out-of-field' teaching (Coulthard & Kyriacou, 2002;Ingersoll, 2003).…”

“…In particular, researchers are interested in examining how and why the attitudes in choice of teaching were gender-related. For instance, Johnston et al (1999) found that the factors influencing the choice of primary teaching as a career option among sixth formers differed significantly between males and females. Other studies also found that female students tended to value teaching as a profession more highly than their male counterparts (e.g.…”

“…Some explored how teaching is perceived relative to other occupations, for example, by their contribution to society, salary and status (Johnston et al, 1999;Fwu & Wang, 2002). Others studied what factors prospective teachers consider as important in their career choice and the extent to which they think teaching as a career offers these (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000).…”

Improving teacher recruitment and retention: the importance of workload and pupil behaviour

“…likes working with people, including children)". Indeed, looking at individual reasons for wanting to teach from recent studies, intrinsic or altruistic reasons were most frequently give by teachers, for example wanting to work with children (Johnston, McKeown and McEwen, 1999a, Moran et al, 2001, Smithers and Robinson, 2001, Thornton and Reid, 2001, Thornton, Bricheno and Reid, 2002, perceived job satisfaction (Johnston, McKeown and McEwen, 1999b, Thornton and Reid, 2001, Thornton, Bricheno and Reid, 2002, enjoyment of subject (Kyriacou and Benmansour, 1999) and positive experiences of teaching in the past (Hammond, 2002). The only extrinsic reason that emerged from any of the studies as the most cited reason to enter into teaching was "long holidays" Coulthard, 2000, Rawlinson et al, 2003).…”