Researching Feminine Professions: Reflections on Infant Schooling

Abstract

Over the last three decades in Europe, the field of “Gender and Education” and its development, has moved from investigating ways in which schools are to minimize gender inequality, to become a theoretical and empirical field of research. However, the disparities between men and women continue to exist and even increase in times of crisis. That is why to reference the paths towards equality in male and/or feminine professions, we are forced to weigh up salaries, social esteem, prestige, and others. And this is especially important when dealing with men and women sharing public and private spheres of life. In Infant schooling, and with Infant school teachers, to put it as an example, there is a need to balance child rearing and educating, or put it otherwise, the role of women as teachers, nurses and care keepers (Zufiaurre, Pellejero, 2000). In the paper, we refer to Infant schooling as a school stage, to Infant teachers as “valued – devalued” professionals, to the dimensions of care as integrated in modern colonial societies modeled by relations of dominion and dominance. We refer to Infant Schooling for historical and contemporary reasons. At this school stage, the stereotypes are not fixed, neither gender heritage. They are created. Infant school situations can be easily reversed, and Infant school teachers are to be reputable to contribute to changes in society.