This study examines questions of gender, masculinity, and teaching through an autobiographical exploration of my experiences as a male elementary teacher. Its twofold purpose as a self-study was to inform my own teaching through a perspective look at the entirety of my career to this point and to give my teaching a direction for its final years. In order to provide a context within which to locate this autobiography, biographical narratives of four other experienced male elementary teachers were constructed. / The participants were asked, in a series of taped and transcribed interviews/conversations, to relate their experiences as male elementary teachers. The orientation of these biographical constructions followed a life history methodological approach. The participants were asked to trace their careers as elementary teachers and touch on such broad topic areas as: How they became elementary teachers? What has kept them in the classroom? How they see their roles in the context of their female colleagues? What is the future direction of their careers? What are some of the particular issues of teaching that concern them? / It was through my own participation in these conversations, and through the subsequent analysis and construction of their biographies that I was able to address these questions as they related to my own teaching. Their narratives provided a contextual backdrop for our shared experiences and a counterpoint to those experiences that are unique to each of us. I call the emergent methodology "contextualized autobiography." It was, in fact, through their narratives that my own story emerged and granted insight into issues of teaching, gender and masculinity as they exist for the male elementary teacher. The study's significance beyond the exploration of self is addressed to the political issue of the calls for more male teachers in elementary education and the assumptions on which those calls are based.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.36675 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Penny, William, 1947- |
| Contributors | Mitchell, Claudia (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational Studies.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001744956, proquestno: NQ64640, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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