The teaching profession is definitely one of the most feminized professions, despite only men being able to work as teachers in the past. Because it was the first intellectual profession accessible to women, they quickly began deciding for it and soon, women prevailed in it. With time, other professions became available to them, yet nowadays they still often choose professions that are similar to the traditional roles of women. Even a quick overview of Slovene schools and statistics show us that there are many more female than male teachers employed in them.
With the help of existing literature and research, I found out there are many reasons for that. The reasons are definitely historical but we cannot overlook gender specific socialization, which still dictates women social roles that are stereotypically female. In the process of socialization, schools also have a big impact because they work as an ideological apparatus of the state and spread their values and norms with the help of the hidden curriculum.
To find out what are the reasons behind choosing the teaching profession and why women and men decide for it, I did interviews with six female teachers and two male ones. I discovered that all of them chose the teaching profession because they had good experiences with their own teachers. As it turns out, those teachers have a huge impact on future teachers. The interviewees said that their closest ones responded to their choice of profession and the profession itself neutrally or positively, but they received more negative responses from the society. Seven people said there are differences between male and female teachers, when it comes to their personality traits, reacting to children’s behaviour, solving conflicts and their energy. They think those differences are a natural given. All of them want more men in the teaching profession, but most realize that reaching a more balanced gender ratio in schools is a complex problem and that the solution might not be easy.
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