ABSTRACT
Educational stakeholders (including teacher unions, teacher training agencies, ministries and boards of education) and the popular media have resorted to invoking the male role model within a context of moral concern about the underachieving boy (see Carrington & McPhee, 2008; Carrington, Tymms, & Morrell, 2005; Martino & Kehler, 2006; Martino, 2004; Mills, Martino, & Lingard, 2004; House of Representatives Standing Committee, 2002; Education Queensland, 2002; Ontario College of Teachers, 2004; National Education Association, 2003). This has led to the male teacher emerging as central to a project of re-masculinization of elementary schooling that is designed to rehabilitate boys’ damaged or failing masculinities (see Lingard & Douglas, 1999; Carrington, 2002; Skelton 2002; Martino & Kehler, 2007). Hence, my aim in this chapter is to expose the limits of such a recuperative masculinity politics by providing a more informed research-based knowledge about the role of male teachers in terms of their capacity to positively influence boys’ achievement in schools. I draw on both a recent male teacher recruiting document produced here in Ontario by a consortium of educational stakeholders and a preliminary study into male elementary teachers’ perceptions and experiences as teachers. In so doing, I raise important questions about the need for policy makers and educational stakeholders to engage with a broader research-based knowledge about the troubled connection between dominant constructions of masculinity and the gendered construction of elementary school teaching (see Blount, 2005; Coulter & Harper, 2005; Grummet, 1988; Johnston, McKeown, & McEwen, 1999; Martino, 2008; Noddings, 2001; Pepperell & Smedley, 1998; Thornton & Bricheno, 2006).
