Men represent roughly 2% of all teachers in preschool and kindergarten classrooms in the United States, and that number may be declining. Researchers have argued that the dearth of male teachers is related in multiple complex ways to the feminized nature of ECED teaching.
Men in early childhood classrooms encounter implicit rules for engaging with children that are different from those encountered by female teachers. An article in the Fall 2008 issue of Early Childhood Research and Practice examines how these implicit rules are reflected in images depicting touch in early childhood education textbooks. The authors note that, although the images of male teachers are positive, the texts provide clear messages to beginning teachers that acceptable types of touch differ by gender. Read more at http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v10n2/gilbert.html
The second article, by a member of that 2% (that is, a male EC teacher), is a description of a Project undertaken in his preschool classroom.
Declining Male Teachers
Joseph A. Jamison
The general lack of male teachers began in the mid 1800's when Horace Mann extoled the virtues of female teachers, being namely that female teachers would work for 1/3 the pay of professional male teachers. Mr. Mann also noted that females were less critical thinkers than males, which placed the proverbial glass ceiling over females at that time. Horace was able to convince those in government and so began a female dominated career field in education, while at the same time females were virtually locked out of other fields.
The noted decline in male teachers in ECED in only part of a continuing instructional gender bias, which has existed since just after formal education began. The resulting disparity of ratios between male and female teachers, I feel is at the heart of several issues in education I would love to get into but this venue is limited.