Gendered Professional and Social Privilege: Men Elementary Teachers Engage in Collective Memory Work

• In Event: 63.059 - Remixing, Remaking, and (Re)Imagining Resilience in Black Males

Abstract

This study explored the discourses surrounding men elementary teachers through feminist Collective Memory Work methods with a group of elementary-teaching men (the term men is a deliberate choice for gender research). Through collective analysis of self-authored identity-stories the ten participant-researchers (all men current or former elementary teachers) identified a number of actions that fall along the themes of professionally or socially privileging. This work provides significant insight into the intersectionality of gender and profession in the working lives of men educators, which can be used to promote a more equitable work and learning environment as part of feminism’s “movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (hooks, 2000, p. 1).

Author

• Christopher Michael Hansen, University of Tennessee Chattanooga