Teaching Men: Masculinity, Narrative and Pedagogy

Abstract

The Teaching Men project investigates masculinity, narrative and teaching by considering one central question; (How) are male teachers influenced by fictional narratives in the construction of masculinities within education? The exploration of this question is executed using three distinct yet corresponding research activities. Firstly by developing a methodological system of narrative analysis that is able to account for the influence of a fictional text alongside a reading of interview data. Secondly by focusing on a specific cohort of male teachers in order to measure the influence of a fictional text, illustrating possibilities of how masculinity can be enacted within education. Finally by assessing how the narrative nature of critical reflective practice enables the integration of fictional texts, and the literary tropes they contain, both widening and restricting perceptions of teachers and teaching. The work of the project demonstrates how fictional narratives and their encompassing ideologies can become a powerful force in the shaping of our professional identities, in this case as male teachers. The Teaching Men project has two parallel research streams. The first stream focuses on a collection of 22 fictional narratives drawn from the teacher text genre. Each text describes the world of teachers and teaching from differing perspectives, in differing forms including, literary texts; dramatic works such as plays or musicals; feature films; and television and radio series. The teacher text genre is both popular and prolific; therefore three key criteria have been established to determine inclusion within the project.