Teachers, Gender and the Feminisation Debate

Marie-Pierre Moreau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351781985
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Teachers, Gender and the Feminisation Debate critically engages with the claim that teaching is a feminised profession and offers a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the way gender and power play out in the lives of male and female teachers. Informed by social constructivist, feminist theories of work and education, the book adopts a relational and intersectional approach to gender.

Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, including national and international datasets, policy and research texts, and an original corpus of interviews conducted by the author in England and France, the book provides a timely assessment of a view of teaching as feminised. It explores the various discourses and debates about the feminisation of teaching which circulate in media and policy circles in a range of local, national and international contexts, and questions some of the claims underpinning these discourses. It also analyses the experiences of men and women who teach, looking at the way gender and power impact on their careers and private lives in the context of the feminisation debate.

Teachers, Gender and the Feminisation Debate offers a research-informed and comprehensive account of gender issues in the teaching profession and will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, sociology and gender studies.

Chapter 1

Introduction

And he called this woman Pandora [All Endowed], because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

(Hesiod, Works and Days, date unknown)

1.1 The feminisation of teaching: old concerns, new debates?

Over the past twenty years, the ‘feminisation’ of teaching and more broadly of society as a whole has become a well-rehearsed theme in many parts of the world among policy-makers, the media, the school workforce and the wider public. This feminisation, in its various meanings, has been constructed as a problem that needs fixing, whereas the masculinisation of teaching has been viewed as a desirable goal and, when achieved, as a cause for celebration (as in Biddulph, 1995; Boinet, 2014; Polony, 2011). At a time when teaching is often described as a ‘feminised’ profession, this book critically engages with these views. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, it investigates through a theoretical lens informed by feminist social constructivist and post-structuralist principles the various discourses of the feminisation of teaching which circulate in a range of local, institutional, national and transnational contexts. This book also explores more broadly the experiences of men and women who teach, looking at the way gender and other power relationships frame their careers and private lives in the context of the feminisation debate.

Claims that teaching is a feminised profession have become prominent in recent history, including in the UK, where I write from, and in many other parts of the global North and the global South (Connell, 2007). The term ‘feminisation’ has taken up a multiplicity of meanings and has been used to describe a range of situations (Skelton, 2002). Yet, I argue, the claims underpinning discourses of teaching as feminised are often not fully articulated and, as a result, left unproblematised. In some instances, the term ‘feminisation’ refers to the view that the profession is statistically dominated by women or is in the process of becoming so. Sometimes, this numerical domination is also equated with social domination. For example, as part of the research I have conducted on gender issues in the teaching profession, I have interviewed a number of headteachers, governors and teachers who strongly denied the view that women teachers face any other form of gender discrimination, including in relation to access to the most senior school positions. Some of these people adopted a gender-blind approach by arguing that gender makes no difference to male and female teachers’ careers and broader experiences. Some went further in contending that women teachers enjoy a matriarchal dividend, i.e., a preferential treatment over their male counterparts, including in the form of more advantageous career opportunities (as discussed in Moreau, 2009, 2011a; Moreau et al., 2005, 2007, 2008). In other instances, the term feminisation is used to refer to the view that the numerical feminisation of teaching has turned school cultures into feminised spaces which reward ‘feminine’ values over ‘masculine’ ones (as in Wansell, 2001). In yet another understanding of the word feminisation, teaching itself is constructed as a feminised, or maybe more accurately ‘female’, profession in the sense of being ‘a good job … for a woman’ (Cacouault-Bitaud, 1987). This latter view of teaching is underpinned by various assumptions, including the fact that it can be easily combined with caring for a family and that it requires the ‘soft skills’ culturally associated in many parts of the world with femininity and, more specifically, motherhood (see critiques in Delphy, 1993; Dilllabough, 1999; Gannerud, 2001; Miller, 1996).

Although I come back to these claims and to their underpinning assumptions in greater depth in Chapter 2 (Teaching and the feminisation debate in contemporary times), it is essential to note that they are anything but innocuous, as the feminisation of teaching and women teachers are often held responsible by policy-makers, the media and parts of the educational workforce for issues ranging from the presumed deprofessionalisation of teaching to the so-called boys’ underachievement (as in Biddulph, 1995; Boinet, 2014; Polony, 2011; Pyke, 2000; Wansell, 2001). These claims also serve a regulatory purpose as they implicitly but powerfully reassert gender binaries, for example, when they allege the existence of irreducible differences between gender groups and confer higher value to the ‘masculine’ over the ‘feminine’ (Moreau and Brownhill, 2017). In other terms, these claims produce differences and hierarchies – what Héritier describes as the ‘valence différentielle des sexes’ (Héritier, 1996, 2002).

Although the contemporary salience of discourses of feminisation indicates that research in this area is timely, it is equally important to recall that these discourses are not new. Throughout history, various views of the feminisation of teaching have circulated in a range of settings, taking a variety of forms and serving a diversity of purposes. With this in mind, this book adopts a broad approach, focusing on the contemporary era, yet occasionally drawing on a socio-historical perspective, concentrating on specific national contexts, yet at times adopting a more international and cross-national comparative lens.

1.2 Researching gender issues in the teaching profession

In the context of the feminisation debate, researching discourses of the feminisation of teaching has become all the more necessary. Historically, research on gender and other equality matters in education contexts has focused on learners, with specific attention to the way education contributes to the formation of their identities (see, e.g., Archer and Francis, 2007; Hoskins, 2017; Martino and Meyenn, 2001; Mills, 2003; Moss, 2007; Reay, 2002; Skelton and Francis, 2003; Spender, 1982; Willis, 1977; see discussion in Moreau, 2014). Some of this work has explored how the production of gendered, classed and raced identities among students is compounded by school cultures and, in particular, teachers (Allard, 2004; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970; Causey et al., 2000; Echols and Stader, 2002; Kannen and Acker, 2008; Olmedo, 1997; Walkerdine et al., 2001). This has not been matched by a similar level of research activity regarding how the gender, race and class regimes of school and national cultures infuse teachers’ identities. As argued by Allard and Santoro (2006), ‘Too often, the focus is on developing student teachers’ understandings of how gender, ethnicity, “race” and class shape learner identities but how these also shape teachers’ identities is rarely explored’ (p. 116, emphasis in original).

Likewise, studies of the school workforce and of school leadership have often remained silent about gender and the feminisation of teaching, as discussed in Acker (1995) and in Cacouault-Bitaud (2003) (the former in relation to English-language research literature, the latter to its French-language equivalent). Yet the figure of the seemingly disembodied and universal worker (in this case, the teacher) often conceals those of a White, middle-class, heterosexual man (as discussed in Héritier, 1996, 2002). In other instances, gender and other power relationships such as class and race are merely conceptualised as socio-demographic variables, as observed by Cacouault-Bitaud (2003) (see examples in Hirschhorn, 1993; Hüberman, 1989). Indeed, the disaggregation of data by gender which often results from such an approach is rarely associated with a revisiting of the old epistemological, theoretical and methodological frameworks which, more often than not, ignore women’s experiences and construct the experiences of their male counterparts as the norm (Moreau, 2011a). As a result, this literature is often dismissive of women teachers and constructs this group through a deficit discourse since the marking of the teacher as ‘female’ is often associated with her devaluation (as in Etzioni, 1969). Within the sociology of the professions, research exploring processes of feminisation has until recently concentrated on those professions in which women are ‘the exception’ rather than in the majority (e.g., engineering), possibly because women’s presence does not trouble established gender binaries in the way it does when women enter spaces constructed as masculine (Buscatto and Marry, 2009; Butler, 1990; Marry, 2003; Weiner, 2000). However, the widespread cultural linkage of teaching with femininity and, in some instances,¹ the co-presence of women and men is precisely what makes teaching an area of particular relevance to the researcher concerned with gender matters. Indeed, as argued by Acker,

Teaching is interesting because it is not a single-sex monopoly like engineering or secretarial work; on the contrary, both sexes are well-represented, albeit differently distributed by phase and subject. Teaching is thought of as an appropriate – perhaps even ‘the best’ – career for women, the best paid and highest status of the traditionally female professions, with holidays and hours that allow combined responsibilities in work and family contexts. Yet a closer look shows that ‘career chances’ of women and men teachers sharply diverge.

(1989, p. 1)

In education and employment policy circles, gender equality in the teaching profession tends to attract limited concern. At times, in some contexts, a concern for women’s representation in the profession has emerged (Dove, 1986; UNESCO, 2011); in other contexts, women have been problematically constructed as the dominant gender group. This latter approach is characteristic of the ways in which the debate on ‘boys’ underachievement’ has unfolded in a number of countries, constructing boys and male teachers as victims of the ‘feminisation’ of teaching (see, e.g., Canadian Teachers’ Federation, 2002; Department for Education and Employment, 1998; Department for Education and Skills, 2004, 2005; Education Queensland, 2002). Although I come back to this specific claim later in this volume (see Chapter 2, Teaching and the feminisation debate in contemporary times), it is worth recalling here that the view that boys and male teachers are placed at a significant disadvantage in schools, and that the numerical or cultural masculinisation of the teaching body would suffice to tackle the many issues boys are supposedly facing, is neither supported by empirical evidence nor by a sound theoretical basis (see discussions in Epstein et al., 1998; Francis, 2006; Francis and Skelton, 2005; Hutchings, 2002; Hutchings et al., 2008; Keddie and Mills, 2009; Moreau, 2011b; Skelton and Francis, 2009). More generally, policy-makers’ concerns for equality issues in the teaching profession often appear driven by instrumental motives, such as the desire to use (the) teaching body/ies as a quick fix to the problem faced by students. Within this approach, gender and other equality matters are not constructed as social relationships of power. Instead, I argue, they are problematically subjected to processes of objectification, commodification, naturalisation and individualisation which construct these as attributes or forms of capital wielding benefits for those who hold them (e.g., for men teachers performing the ‘right’ type of masculinity), for those who can purchase them (schools) and for those who will be exposed to them (students). Among other things, it is ironic that this approach naturalises gender identities while simultaneously claiming that the presence of men is a necessary condition of the formation of learners’ masculine identities.

Despite these reserves, it would be misleading to conclude to a complete dearth of research about the feminisation of teaching and about the ways gender plays out in teachers’ identities altogether. As I have argued in an earlier attempt to map research on inequalities in the teaching profession, the sociology of women teachers as well as studies looking more broadly at gender in teaching have considerably expanded since the 1980s (Moreau, 2014). This diverse body of work has since continued to grow, exploring the opportunities, constraints and dilemmas experienced by women and men teachers and adopting a range of approaches. Some authors have drawn on a socio-historical approach, and others have adopted a more contemporary focus (see, e.g., Acker, 1989, 1994; Brehmer, 1980; Clifford, 1981; Cortina and San Román, 2006; David, 2013; De Lyon and Widdowson Migniuolo, 1989; Grumet, 1988; Hoffman, 1981; Markowitz, 1993; Miller, 1996; Prentice and Theobald, 1991; van Essen and Rogers, 2003; Schmuck, 1980; Tamboukou, 2003). Other work has concentrated on the cultural association between women and caring for children (Beatty, 1990; Chan, 2004). Others have explored more specifically their career progression, including in relation to the conflicting relationship between paid and unpaid work and to how recruitment and promotion criteria and more broadly school cultures disadvantage women and minority ethnic groups (Blackmore, 1999; Boulton and Coldron, 1998; Coleman, 2002, 2004; De Lyon and Widdowson Migniuolo, 1989; Krüger, 1996; Moreau, 2011a; Moreau et al., 2007, 2008; Ozga, 1993; Scase and Goffee, 1989; Shakeshaft, 1989). Occasionally, this work has focused on women from Black and minority ethnic groups, highlighting the challenges they face when navigating school regimes which are gendered and raced (see, e.g., Bangar and McDermott, 1989; Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002; Casey, 1993; DeLany and Rogers, 2004). More recent work, often informed by a post-structuralist perspective, has considered the regulation and surveillance of women teachers’ private and professional lives as well...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Teaching and the feminisation debate in contemporary times
• 3 A socio-historical approach to the feminisation of the teaching profession
• 4 Gender patterns in the teaching profession in the 21st century
• 5 Teachers’ professional identities, career choice and gender
• 6 Gender divides in teachers’ careers and ‘private’ lives
• 7 Concluding comments
• Index