Teachers’ gender in the eyes of parents: Contradictory expectations

Abstract

This article explores parents’ views towards compulsory school teachers and the way in which the gender of the teachers may or may not inf luence those views. The study is based on interviews conducted in 2016 and 2017. The interviewees were ten, four men and six women, aged 32–48 years. Five interviewees were resident in the capital area and five in other regions of the country. Every participant had both a boy and a girl in compulsory school and at least one child in the youngest group (age 6–9) and another one at the intermediate level (age 10–12). It was also a condition that at least one child should have had a male class teacher. In total, the participants had children in six different compulsory schools at the time of the interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The study is based on a poststructuralist view which rejects an essential difference between men and women – thus also a feminist perspective.
The study suggests that teachers’ gender is widely discussed among parents, but men and women teachers are not necessarily expected to model the same character - istics. The interviewees’ perspectives indicated a conf lict between essentialism and constructivism. This was, for example, demonstrated in their views on the import - ance of children experiencing both genders in diverse roles and also in the views of those who argued that there was a difference between men and women teachers in teaching style and behavior. The interviewees generally claimed that individual differences were greater than gender differences, although a contradiction can be found in the fact that some qualities, nevertheless, were most often attributed to a specific gender. The interviewees found it important that teachers should be good role models for students, but some suggested that men and women teachers might also be different role models. Contrary to what has been reported, the parents often rejected the idea that gender played a role in their views and opted instead for indivi dualism, stating that they did not identify the teachers as men or women but as indi viduals. The interviewees’ attitude largely ref lects the social debate about the need to increase the number of men in teaching. The parents did not necessarily want the male teachers to demonstrate traditional masculinity in the classroom; they wanted to see different male role models rather than the traditional ones. Some of them stressed that they wanted a diverse workforce. Most interviewees did not associate the men teachers they knew with hegemonic masculinity, and most, but not all, of the interviewees thought that masculinity was changing for the better and wanted to see teachers who demonstrated warmth. Teachers’ gender was not excluded in the debate on respect and discipline. One issue the interviewees mentioned was the possibility that the model of the female teacher was too endearing and that the physical strength of male teachers and their voice might have a positive effect on students’ respect for the teacher. The parents all agreed that both men and women could be good and caring teachers. The interviewees mostly agreed that there was a difference between how men and women teachers showed care and most of them said that men teachers maintained a certain distance in their attitude to students, whereas women teachers usually did not. Interviewees’ emphasis on individual rather than gender difference is likely to be indicative of a rather limited and general understanding of the importance of gender equality in schools.
The researchers want to underline that if a specific strategy to increase the number of men teachers in compulsory schools is introduced, it must be critical of stereo - types based on traditional gender roles. Furthermore, that teacher education must prepare student teachers of all genders for all aspects of the teacher’s job, including the probability that gendered expectations may await them when they begin working.