Are there male preschool teachers

The survey and the resulting study are an attempt to determine what influences men to enter the female-dominated early childhood education field—and the challenges they face once there. The team reached out to 81 male early childhood teachers in New York City who work in classrooms with children between the age of three and second grade; 46 teachers completed the surveys.

Nationwide, only about 3 percent of early childhood teachers are male , which experts say can have an impact on young children whose conceptions of gender roles and identity are rapidly forming. Research has found that having access to diverse teachers is beneficial for children ; for the youngest learners, it means they are more likely to get exposed to different varieties of play and communication, and helps them develop healthy ideas around gender.

Despite mostly feeling supported by colleagues and family members, many of the male educators reported facing societal barriers or cultural resistance in their careers as early ed teachers.

Some of the educators surveyed said they had been advised by colleagues or administrators not to hug children or were left out of tasks like changing diapers. Reich-Shapiro and fellow researchers Kirsten Cole and Jean-Yves Plaisir, recommend several policy implications that cities and programs can consider to increase male representation in the field:. Subscribe today! This story about male early childhood teachers was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn't mean it's free to produce. They run to him with brightened faces, some of them try to clamber onto his back while others reach for him, looking for a hug. A boy pulls a face at him. Tay grins and reciprocates, earning a giggle. Tay, a centre manager at pre-school chain Carpe Diem, is one of about male pre-school educators in Singapore.

They make up fewer than 1 per cent of the total pool of early childhood educators. He remembers the first time he took a class on his own.

It was a sad moment for him. But he also remembers his principal encouraging him not to give up, and convincing the parents to give him a chance. His first year in the industry was the toughest.

By the end of the year, even the parents in the other classes wanted to ask for a transfer to my class. As a male educator, he does not do routine care, such as showering the children or changing their diapers. He also limits his physical contact with the children, and over the years has developed guidelines for himself and any male teacher who might join the centre.

For example, he uses only one arm to hug the children — and that hug is limited to a pat on the back. When he first joined the sector, he did not have specific guidelines setting out what he could or could not do as a male educator. He decided to develop his own to not only protect the children, but also himself. He remembers once, early in his career, when he forgot himself and gave a child a full-on hug. Adhering to his guidelines can be challenging, and even saddening at times, but he knows there are lines he cannot cross.

Amid these challenges Tay has faced, he persevered because he had always known he wanted to teach. Research methodology is the path through which researchers need to conduct their research.

This chapter adopted desk-based research also known as the systematic inquiry which relied on empirical researched secondary data which was gathered without fieldwork. Ideally, these published reports and statistics are certainly important sources [ 74 ].

In the context of this chapter the term is widened to include all sources of information such as reputable journals, books and different published articles that do not involve a field survey.

As depicted by name desk-research is a technique which is mainly acquired by sitting at a desk and collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low-cost and effective technique as compared to field research.

Still, for the researcher to save money and time they must have the proper knowledge that can be used as benchmark of the research procedure. Besides being time and financially economic there is reduced bias and infringement of ethics as there is no human contact in collecting data. The other advantage was that the researchers were able access information related to the phenomenon from a wider international community.

However, the technique also has limitations such as lack of the ability to verify on the reported facts, stringent restrictions on the access of some publication that have relevant information. Men in families and the society at large are valued as breadwinners, protectors and disciplinarians who instil values and morals to their offspring.

With this background several studies have sought the significance of male educator in pre-school. It turns out that in South Africa, men are rare in early childhood setting even though they would be valued as role models who would provide discipline for children. Male educators can handle discipline better and they are good in handling sporting teams and children listen to them hence, they perform better in school.

M en do not have that motherly love and patience with very young children as pre-school demands hands-on people. Whereas men play a pivotal role in nurturing young children, there is so much mistrust of men around children in pre-school centres from the society. Some men can be very abusive to their families. Yes, they may be financially better but there are some men who do not really care for their families even if they can afford. I was traumatised by men in my family hence I had this child.

Besides, children in the pre-school need toilet training, some changing of diapers which most men, especially African men are not socialised to do.

So, I am sceptical about men is a class with very young children. The deep-rooted fear and mistrust of men is due to the high crime rate among women and children in South Africa with men equally not trusting other men with their children. In Turkey, a parent expressed her desire of having a male teacher for her child, but I could not ignore the concerns she had about Child abuse which affects as boys and girls.

In caring for young children there is a lot of touching, hugging, wiping of this and that so we think that men do not have that kind of affection and patience. Generally, people think that men do not have the compassion to deal with little children because sometimes they do not show the emotion of love.

Men are too stringent, and this can scare the little children. It has taken some time for my colleagues to fully accept me. At times you can feel their suspicion …. In this discourse men have generally been viewed as playing a significant role as fathers confirming literature in several studies which found that the involvement of men as fathers is valued as disciplinarians, teachers of values and moral and breadwinners, gender-role models, and nurturants [ 75 , 76 ].

Collaborating this study is abundant research globally that attest to the involvement of fathers as essential for their social, emotional, and cognitive development [ 48 , 56 ] in the early lives of young children. Although men bring up children in homes as their offspring when they turn up in educational setup, culture and stereotype mindset of people doubt their capability to nurture and educate children.

In this chapter male educators have been recognised as pivotal in building up well-adjusted children behaviourally, yet cultural attitudes and stereotype prejudgments, and prejudices deter them from the teaching of young children [ 52 , 79 ].

Besides being rejected by fellow female colleagues male educators face resistance from the communities they serve as confirmed by some studies [ 48 , 80 ] which found that discrimination, marginalisation and the prevalence of gender inequality against male educators in pre-school was very high in many worldwide countries.

This study found deep-rooted fear of men from all sectors including other men. Men have been known to be strict which may scare young children confirming the prevalent belief in societies that men are not capable of caring for and educating young children like women [ 81 ].

There was widespread fear that men can abuse children in this study which has turned out to be a worldwide concern in early childhood settings.

Collaborating these findings is the study are the claims by school heads who purposely avoid engaging male teachers as child protection measures because of the increase because of the increase of paedophilic abuse [ 82 ]. Parents claim that the safety and comfort of their children is paramount as it gives them peace of mind when they leave children in the care of schools and centres.

I notice how you did this. You know, a side hug. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics , fewer than 3 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers are men—and this figure has not changed substantially in recent decades US Bureau of Labor Statistics Male early childhood teachers like Javier find themselves and their work received in a variety of ways.

Some colleagues and families offer affirmation and support, while others treat male early childhood educators with curiosity or suspicion. To become excellent early childhood educators, male teachers require the same preparation and ongoing professional development as female teachers. However, because of their current scarcity in the field, male educators may also require intentional supports that address the particular circumstances they face related to bias and isolation.

This article documents some of the joys and challenges that male early childhood teachers experience, and offers concrete recommendations for policy and practice that can be implemented to increase gender balance in the field. As young children grow, they need to know that people of all genders have an important role to play in their care and education. Children experience a range of models of femininity and womanhood though their exposure to a variety of female educators and caregivers.

When young children do not experience a comparable range of models of masculinity, their view of what it means to be a boy or a man may be monolithic or incomplete Giese As they grow, all children need to see and be part of relationships in which male children and adults are allowed to be emotionally expressive and deeply connected; this is especially true for children who identify as male, since our culture often discourages them from such expression Way Improving the gender balance of the early childhood workforce would provide all children with a richer variety of role models at this critical time in their gender identity development Drudy Throughout this article, we refer to male and female educators and children as well as to notions of masculinity.

When arguing for the need to increase the numbers of men working in early childhood education, we do not mean to promote an essentialized view of gender, as if only male educators can provide young children with models of masculinity.

Our argument for the need for more male educators in the profession is grounded in a desire to offer young children a more multifaceted experience of gender throughout their care and education. The harms caused by a culture of toxic masculinity are increasingly visible Clemens ; Giese , and the effort to create a more gender- balanced workforce seems more important all the time.

As we build the profession, we seek to offer all young children a healthy and supported environment in which to grow, learn, and become themselves. The goal of our two-year study was to understand the conditions that support or constrain male early childhood educators. To create a detailed picture of their experiences, we collected data in various forms, including from a questionnaire, interviews, and focus groups. All of the narratives in this article come from these sources. Although our study was limited to New York City, we sought participants who worked at a variety of site types—NYC Department of Education schools, community-based organizations, and a few tuition-based programs—and who educated children in a range of neighborhoods with low, medium, and high levels of economic supports and resources.

Our participants held a variety of positions—assistant teachers, paraprofessionals, coteachers, lead teachers—and they had a range of levels of experience working in the field: 10 percent of our participants were in their first year in the classroom, while 40 percent had worked with young children for more than 10 years. We began our data collection by distributing a lengthy questionnaire to 81 male early childhood teachers. Although this sample size seems small, we had to reach out to 82 sites just to find this many male early childhood educators.

Interestingly, though many of the centers we initially contacted employed no male educators, several of the sites employed a number of men, perhaps reflecting a hiring priority on the part of administrators to develop a more gender-balanced teaching team.

After analyzing the questionnaire data, we began a series of interviews.