In my master's thesis, I will focus on the topical issue of gender differences in the workplace and feminised professions. In contemporary society, stereotypes are still present in the professional sphere. Although society is changing, the origins of prejudices and the way they are perpetuated over time are interesting. Women still occupy the lower rungs of the ladder and experience occupational or employment segregation along gender lines. Men, on the other hand, tend to move up the ladder gracefully, mostly reaching the top.
Also, society still divides jobs into feminised and masculinised professions. One of the most feminised professions today is certainly that of teaching. The proportion of male teachers in primary schools is very low. Statistics show that the teaching profession is predominantly female and that it occupies one of the highest rungs of the traditionally feminised professions. It is also noticeable that there is already a very low proportion of male students enrolled in university programmes such as Classroom Teacher and Primary Teacher Education. So I looked into the transition of men into traditionally female professions, with a focus on the teaching profession.
I defined the teaching profession in the past and compared it with the role of the profession today. Teachers used to be men only, as women were not even allowed to enter school, let alone teach. It was only men who were considered to be educated, wise and intellectual, the only ones capable of imparting knowledge to their pupils. What is really interesting, then, is the transformation of an all-male school staff into a mixed or predominantly female one.
I have researched what are the qualities of a good teacher and what are the reasons why male teachers choose this profession. I compared the conversations, opinions and reflections of male teachers teaching in primary schools in Slovenia and male teachers teaching in Slovenian primary schools in Italy (Gorizia and Trieste).
The empirical work has thus given me a better insight into how male teachers experience their own career paths.
|