Toxic Masculinity Masking as Cultural Relevancy: Latino Men Navigating Heteropatriarchal Expectations of Manhood in the Teaching Profession (Poster 27)

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

This poster presentation examines the ways Latino men teachers experience and navigate heteropatriarchal expectations associated with their teaching and gender performance. These expectations were often (mis)framed as “cultural relevancy.” In recent years, there has been considerable effort to recruit and retain more men of color in the teaching profession. In part, these efforts are imagined to bring culturally relevant educators to work with struggling boys of color. In this qualitative study, 11 Latino men teachers described encountering expectations to signal “cultural relevancy” in ways that reproduced hegemonic and toxic masculinity. These expectations came from both teachers and administrators, who positioned these Latino men teachers to embody tropes of the macho, Mexican patriarch that disciplines unruly boys. This expectation also came from students, who sometimes desired their teacher to perform a Latino manhood admired for its physical and sexual power. The Latino men in this study also recounted navigating these expectations in ways that disrupt and queer the figure of the culturally relevant Latino man teacher. Overall, this study deconstructs how and why Latino men teachers are asked to perform a culturally relevant manhood in the classroom.

Author

• Michael V. Singh, University of California - Davis