Where are the men in early childhood education?

TaradilloThese days at the school where I work, we've been joined by a group of early childhood education students, including a boy. The lack of boys, whether students or teachers, in early childhood education has led me to reflect on the reasons for the feminization of the teaching community for children ages 0 to 6.

It's true that socially there are more masculinized jobs and others that are more feminized, and these differences often have to do with economic power, gender stereotypes, and social prestige, and in this case, also with social expectations regarding the role of each profession. It's also known that salary conditions today still show many unjustified differences: men continue to earn more than women for the same jobs.

However, we must keep in mind that the educational field is a very equitable workplace, where men and women are paid exactly the same and where access to the profession is not, in principle, determined by gender.

However, the group that educates young children is a highly feminized field. According to data from the Generalitat (Catalan government) from last December, the specialty of early childhood education is almost entirely female (97.7%), and that of primary education is 83.2%. 87.3% of primary school English teachers are women, as are 82.3% of secondary school English teachers, 89.5% of reception classroom specialists, and 93.3% of therapeutic pedagogy teachers. However, some less feminized specialties are physical education (42.4%), mathematics (52%), and technology (43.9%)..

How to explain the causes of this feminization?

Without going into too much historical detail, we should know that what we know today as school can be considered to have emerged in the mid-18th century. At that time, women began to educate children, but within this framework:

- Male teachers exercise authority.

- Female teachers perform a caring function.

This same separation over the years has led to the educational focus of younger children becoming more nurturing, while that of boys, girls, and young people has become more instructional, with an element of discipline, effort, and authority. It is at this time that the consolidation of this separation and feminization in the education of younger children, and masculinization in that of older children, is taking place.

In addition to these historical reasons, there are also social ones. There has been a socially consolidated idea that motherhood, and therefore women, predispose one to better caregiving duties, and childcare has been associated with welfare for many decades. From my point of view, two prejudices are intertwined here. The first, and therefore the one that must be most strongly denounced, is the lack of importance given to childhood in general. Caring for children is not even considered socially because childhood does not occupy a politically privileged space. Consequently, and now we're talking about the second prejudice, little social importance is given to the teaching profession, which, as we have seen, is highly feminized.

For all these reasons, I believe that defending the male role as educator in early childhood education represents another strong argument for gender equality between men and women in any field of work. There needs to be more female teachers in technological fields, just as there should be more male teachers in early childhood education. We're talking about the same struggle that is waged when campaigns are launched to ensure more women in the fire department. If our children don't encounter male teachers during their schooling, they won't have role models to imagine that perhaps one day they too could be teachers of young children. We must find the best way to reverse this dynamic.

Meanwhile, it's important to know that the history of early childhood education has been written by women, some well-known, like teacher Rosa Sensat, and many others less well-known but equally committed to children and respect for their rights. Will we men be able to read it?