The Image Of Masculinity And Its Beyond

In many countries,the gender structure of elementary school teachers tends to be“feminine”.This phenomenon has aroused the positive attention of the society,but also caused some worries.Some social groups and media even believe that increasing the proportion of male elementary teachers and maintaining the gender balance of teachers are of great significance to the development of students(especially boys).An important assumption is that male and female teachers have different gender traits(for example,male teachers tend to be more fair and female teachers tend to be more caring).These traits are irreplaceable and indispensable to the development of students.In fact,the studies on teacher caring are mainly focused on female teachers and female experience,and less on male teachers and male experience.In view of this,based on the context of contemporary China,this study described and explained the caring cognition and specific behaviors of male teachers in elementary schools,and then critically reflected on their caring experience.On the basis of integrating existing theories,this study mainly defines teacher caring as teachers giving verbal or behavioral concern and support to students with specific needs in the school context.According to the purpose and problems of the study,this study selected 33 male elementary teachers from 8 elementary schools in 4cities in the Yangtze River Delta region as the object of analysis.Abundant data were collected through in-depth interviews,and they were coded,classified and analyzed.This study found that male teachers in elementary schools show three specific characteristics in caring.First,in the understanding of caring,male elementary school teachers adopt different orientations such as “psychology”,“behavior” and“relationships”,but mainly focus on “behavior” orientation;they note the role of caring for the welfare of students,the professional development of teachers and the maintenance of teacher-student relationship,but mainly emphasize the educationalsignificance of caring for students' growth,especially the view that they can serve as male role models for students,“substitute parents” and have a unique position in developing students' awareness of gender roles.Second,in the occurrence of caring,male elementary school teachers respond positively to students' biological,communicative and developmental needs,but mainly point to students' developmental needs.Third,in the ways of showing caring,the direct caring behaviors of male elementary school teachers mainly involve the care of students' physical fitness,the comfort and encouragement of students' psychology and the strengthening,guidance,and requirements of students' behavior.They also show indirect caring behaviors such as joint participation and home-school cooperation and so on.Among them,the strengthening,guidance,and requirements of students' behavior are the most common caring behaviors of male teachers in elementary schools.Although the caring of male elementary school teachers also has the flexible aspect,it mainly displays the rigid tendency,in order to emphasize the masculinities.On the whole,these caring cognition and behaviors of male elementary school teachers are deeply related to the characteristics of teachers,the individual backgrounds of students and the campus culture.Based on these findings,this study believes that the caring of male elementary school teachers has unique complexity.First,male elementary school teachers accept and internalize caring as a teaching professional requirement.Second,male elementary school teachers tend to start from the male standpoint and regard male caring as a unique type of educational caring that is different from female caring.Third,although the interpretation of the image of male caregiver by male elementary school teachers is still under the traditional gender framework,it also presents a more free and personal understanding,which gives birth to the possibility of liberating and reinterpreting male caregiver.In summary,on the one hand,the caring of male elementary school teachers does not get rid of the male stereotype of the society,showing the typical male image.On the other hand,because of the uniqueness of the profession,the commonality of humanity and the openness of the society,their caring shares and absorbs the caring experience and practice of women,thus blurs the traditional gender boundaries in caring.