Recruitment - How early years can man up

The male CV arriving in response to a job advert in a pre-school typically represents one of two things: either it is a novelty or an aberration. In the latter case, it is dismissed. This is not an individual who is like us; he has a different gender. In the case of the former, while there may be keen interest in acquiring ‘a man’, what values are used to assess him against, consciously or subconsciously, in terms of fitting within our organisation?

Are we expecting new group members to adapt to our culture – the way we do things around here, or how far are we willing to change to accommodate somebody different? We could equally apply this challenge to those of other races, religions, beliefs, practices and culture. For some of us it is enriching and educational to absorb new ideas; for others it can be a challenge.

The welcome that awaits a new male practitioner could be reticent. Preconceived ideas about gender stereotypes can influence expectations of character and behaviours. Will a new man be feckless? Will he get the children worked up? Maybe he will lack responsibility. Why does he want to work with children anyway? He will be good for physical outdoor activities. He will like football. He will be a role model, especially for the boys. If an early years team comprises exclusively female staff, it is valid for them to ask themselves why this is the case, whether there is any conscious or subconscious gatekeeping, if there is any desire for a balanced gender team, what they are prepared to change, and what actions they might take to bring this about.

Gendered environments and practices

Given the low percentage of men working in the early years nationally, the chances are that your setting employs very few or no men working directly with the children. There are notable exceptions to this, but these are rare. If your team is all-female, are you comfortable with the status quo? We have often heard the comment, ‘We’d love to have male practitioners but we don’t receive applications from them’. This is generally true. It is not the case that we are turning men away; they are simply not applying to work in early years settings. Seeing it from the man’s perspective can be helpful in reflecting on what the barriers are to entry. Through auditing our own particular establishments, we can review various aspects of the environment, our practices, routines and culture by asking ourselves the following:

• Have we ever discussed the gender balance of our team together? Are we actively looking to recruit both men and women?
• What positive action could we take to attract applications from men?
• If a man joined our team, would he feel comfortable and welcome here? Why/why not?
• Does our environment have a gender bias? This might include colour schemes, decoration, furnishings, materials, pictures, ornaments and accessories. What could be done about this?
• What do we discuss in our staff room? Would the content of our conversations be different if we had a mixed-gender team?
• What is our dress code? Does this have a gender bias? If it does, how could it be developed to apply to men?
• How are the toilet facilities organised? (We know of one setting where the new male practitioner was informed that he was expected to share the caretaker’s outside Portaloo, the inside toilet being reserved for the exclusive use of female staff.)

ACTIVITY

Download our gender audit from here: www.samey.uk/audit

Initiate a team discussion on their views on a mixed gender team.

Conduct the audit with your team, discuss the results and plan any agreed actions.

The ‘glass escalator’

Two per cent of the UK early years workforce and 14 per cent of primary school teachers are male. Thirty-two per cent of men working in primary and nursery schools are in senior leadership roles (DfE 2014).

This is a disproportionate level of male representation in management positions compared with the relative number of men in the workforce. The ‘glass escalator’ (Williams 1992) refers to the way in which men tend to be promoted above women in female-dominated industries. These figures suggest that this is true for practising in the early years and primary teaching sectors.

Explanations for this include female careers suffering interruptions due to maternity leave and some women preferring day-to-day interactions and relationships with children over a management role. Another explanation, according to Goldberg (cited in Goudreau 2012), is that ‘stereotypes about what a prototypical man is match with stereotypes about what a prototypical manager is’.

As a rarity in female-dominated careers, men tend to get noticed and are considered by decision-makers to be more suited to management roles. Not only are men a rarity in our workforce, but they are also moving into management roles more quickly – typically, away from daily interaction with children. If this is the case, not only does it reinforce discrimination against women by unfairly promoting men based on gender rather than ability and sustaining the gender imbalance in management, but it also exacerbates the lack of opportunity for boys and girls to interact with men and women on an ongoing basis.

The few men we do have in the early years sector are sometimes fast-pathed up and away from day-to-day practice. The glass escalator theory suggests that such promotions are based purely on gender. As traditionally the main breadwinner in a family, could it be that men are in greater need of more money and therefore more likely to apply for these roles? Might men consider management as a route out of day-to-day hard work with the children into what might be perceived as a more office-based role?

• The above is an edited extract from Men in Early Years Settingsby David Wright and Simon Brownhill (Jessica Kingsley, £18.99).