Chapter 1: The Dilemmas of Male Elementary Preservice Teachers

For many years, male teachers have been underrepresented in elementary classrooms. Moreover, concerted efforts to recruit and retain male teachers have achieved only limited results. For the past 20 years, the percentage of male elementary teachers has remained constant at around 15% (Aud, Hussar, Planty, Snyder, Bianco, Fox, Frohlich, & Drake, 2010). Similar trends have been seen in other countries as well (Foster & Newman, 2005). To help understand how this phenomenon affects elementary teacher education, we set about answering one critical question: What do preservice male elementary teachers believe about teaching and about themselves as teachers?

We maintain that learning more about the next generation of male elementary teachers and the meanings they attach to themselves as teachers and their work in schools will offer valuable insights to those who educate both preservice and in-service teachers. Although researchers have been studying male teachers in the classroom, more attention should be paid to these men before they reach the classroom (Francis & Skelton, 2001; Mills, 2004). In this chapter we recount the perceptions of male preservice elementary teachers as discovered through conversations about themselves and their future work in elementary schools. As each participant is an individual, these conversations and subsequent findings cannot be seen as representative of the male elementary teacher population. However, they do serve to communicate the perceptions of male preservice elementary teachers at two institutions in the United States and provide insights of others interested in this group.