Beyond Male Role Models: Interrogating the Role of Male Teachers in Boys’ Education

Abstract

Educational stakeholders (including teacher unions, teacher training agencies, ministries and boards of education) and the popular media have resorted to invoking the male role model within a context of moral concern about the underachieving boy (see Carrington & McPhee, 2008; Carrington, Tymms, & Morrell, 2005; Martino & Kehler, 2006; Martino, 2004; Mills, Martino, & Lingard, 2004; House of Representatives Standing Committee, 2002; Education Queensland, 2002; Ontario College of Teachers, 2004; National Education Association, 2003). This has led to the male teacher emerging as central to a project of re-masculinization of elementary schooling that is designed to rehabilitate boys’ damaged or failing masculinities (see Lingard & Douglas, 1999; Carrington, 2002; Skelton 2002; Martino & Kehler, 2007). Hence, my aim in this chapter is to expose the limits of such a recuperative masculinity politics by providing a more informed research-based knowledge about the role of male teachers in terms of their capacity to positively influence boys’ achievement in schools. I draw on both a recent male teacher recruiting document produced here in Ontario by a consortium of educational stakeholders and a preliminary study into male elementary teachers’ perceptions and experiences as teachers. In so doing, I raise important questions about the need for policy makers and educational stakeholders to engage with a broader research-based knowledge about the troubled connection between dominant constructions of masculinity and the gendered construction of elementary school teaching (see Blount, 2005; Coulter & Harper, 2005; Grummet, 1988; Johnston, McKeown, & McEwen, 1999; Martino, 2008; Noddings, 2001; Pepperell & Smedley, 1998; Thornton & Bricheno, 2006).