Gendered positionality among Irish male primary teachers: the staff room as a site of performative masculinity (original) (raw)
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Primary teaching has traditionally been framed by assumptions about gender. These commonly held, but seldom voiced, assumptions have a strong impact on male primary schoolteachers and on men considering teaching as a career. Focusing on the lives of five Irish male primary teachers, this article unpacks a number of the assumptions relating to men who teach children at primary level. Many of the assumptions are often shrouded in silence, which increases the difficulty in addressing them. In this context, discussions surrounding the topics of care, men working with young children and teaching as a feminine occupation, are presented. The study employs three data-collection phases using the interview as the primary method of enquiry. Overall, two major challenges were identified: informal barriers and the concept of care in education. The study’s findings show that gender relations within a feminine environment are central to understanding masculinities in primary schools. This article makes a contribution towards revealing how issues of masculinities are navigated and negotiated on a daily basis. Allied to this, it also provides a context for understanding the challenges male teachers face on a continuous basis. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on gender studies.
EQUALITY, INCLUSION AND OPPORTUNITY: CONTEMPORARY IRISH SCHOOLS AND MODERN MASCULINITIES
The notion of equality is central to European public life. Yet, equality is a concept with as many definitions as it has varied use. Traditionally, equality in education focused on access to schooling and on boys' underachievement. As globalised education systems are becoming increasingly socially, culturally and politically diverse, it is important to consider equality in education in relation to the school as a workplace. Employing a feminist research design and focusing specifically on the lives of five Irish male primary teachers, this article unpacks a number of assumptions relating to equality and masculinities. Many of these assumptions are discreet, which allow for inequalities to be created and maintained. In this context, discussions surrounding informal barriers will be explored in relation to teacher education colleges and the staffroom. The study's findings show that the number of males entering teaching is static against a rising number of female entrants. Furthermore, male teachers within the profession feel isolated due to various forces. These forces are not neutral occurrences or natural economic patterns. Gender plays a pivotal role in this ideological drama. This article will be of particular interest to those educationalists interested in promoting gender equality in schools.
Curriculum Inquiry, 2008
This article focuses on the call for more male teachers as role models in elementary schools and treats it as a manifestation of "recuperative masculinity politics" (Lingard & Douglas, 1999). Attention is drawn to the problematic gap between neo-liberal educational policy-related discussions about male teacher shortage in elementary schools and research-based literature which provides a more nuanced analysis of the impact of gender relations on male teachers' lives and developing professional identities. In this sense, the article achieves three objectives: (1) it provides a context and historical overview of the emergence and re-emergence of the male role model rhetoric as a necessary basis for understanding the politics of "doing women's work" and the anxieties about the status of masculinity that this incites for male elementary school teachers; (2) it contributes to existing literature which traces the manifestation of these anxieties in current concerns expressed in the popular media about the dearth of male teachers; (3) it provides a focus on research-based literature to highlight the political significance of denying knowledge about the role that homophobia, compulsory heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity play in "doing women's work." Thus the article provides a much-needed interrogation of the failure of educational policy and policy-related discourse to address the significance of male teachers "doing women's work" through employing an analytic framework that refutes discourses about the supposed detrimental influences of the feminization of elementary schooling.
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In this paper, we interrogate the call for more male role models within the context of boys' education debates in Australia and North America. We explicate links between failing masculinities and this call for more male teachers, arguing that the debate is driven by a "recuperative masculinity politics" committed to addressing the perceived feminization of schooling and its detrimental effect on boys' education. LES ENSEIGNANTS DE SEXE MASCULIN ET LE « PROBLÈME DES GARÇONS » : UNE QUESTION DE POLITIQUE DE LA RÉCUPÉRATION DE LA MASCULINITÉ RÉSUMÉ.
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The history of men has taught us that there has only been one form of ‘man’: dominant and powerful. The role of a man in society was once clear, coherent and secure. Today, being a man has become more complex and confusing. Considerable international research on gender engages with masculinities, masculinities in schools and men in non-traditional occupations. What is missing from the debate on masculinities is an account that connects the voices of men with their individual daily experiences. This paper details a four-year study of eleven male Irish primary school teachers, of which seven are included here, and evaluates the relationship between men, care and work. It examines diverse understandings of care, explores the public and private worlds of masculinities, and evaluates how various social relations are charged with formal and informal meanings of masculinities
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Re masculinization of the teaching profession...
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The paper looks at gendered positionings of a small group of beginning male teachers currently working in schools in Queensland Australia. In recent years there has been much talk about the 'crisis' in masculinity, the declining numbers of male teachers and imminent retirement of experienced male teachers from Australian schools. Within this 'crisis' a range of discourses have emerged that position male teachers in diverse ways. This positioning not only constructed males in traditional images premised by such comments as 'real men' but also highlighted particular issues that impacted differently on male teachers to their female colleagues. It is argued in this paper that the gender construction of teaching bodies impact on the way in which both men and women practice teaching. While there is acknowledgement of negative stereotypes attached to the male body that does teaching, survey data illustrated that positive rewards, pleasures experienced and anticipated by male teachers motivated their desire to take up teaching as a profession. Discourses within the data construct the male teacher as a 21st century male Learning Manager who is as a second career male. He enjoys working with children, wants a family friendly job and wants to be recognised as someone who can nurture the educational journey of students in his care. Therefore in this paper I explore the contradictory and ambiguous discourses concerning male teachers and present the results of an online survey that looked at the contemporary context and experiences of a group of beginning male teachers in Queensland, Australia. These results are discussed in relation to expectations in the teaching workplace and implications for the retention of male teachers.
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