Contested Masculinities in the Toddler Room: The Risk (and Resilience) of Relationship

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Contested Relationships in Early Learning

Abstract

Drawing on four years spent working as mental health counselor and classroom teacher in an urban Head Start Center, I explore the ways in which best practices in the toddler classroom may inform, be informed by, or contradict hegemonic constructions of masculinity. Arguing that caring for small children and hegemonic masculinity typically contradict, leading to challenges for men in caring for children, I propose a new orientation to care-giving in the toddler classroom that re-appropriates the risk of relationship. As well, I articulate the promise of critical praxis for men in engaging young children, highlighting opportunities for re-appropriating hegemony, self-transformation, and resilience.

Author

• Travis S. Wright, University of WIsconsin- Madison