Male teachers’ representations about male teachers

Abstract

The social representations prevalent in society are that women have better conditions to work professionally in the field of education by joining the female image with the role of educator mother. However, what do the teachers think men in this regard? To better understand this reality is that justified the present study aims to investigate the social representations of teachers men about gender relations and male presence in teaching. The qualitative research was carried out by conducting semi-structured interviews with five men who had experience of working as teachers from basic education to higher education. The results show up that normally men find difficulty at working with children, especially because the predominant representations in the society and incorporated by the majority of teachers, are that women have specific skills, related to the maternity which favor the work with in teaching.