Male preschool teacher students negotiating masculinities : a qualitative study with men who are studying to become preschool teachers

The overall interest is to understand how men who study preschool teaching negotiate masculinities. Earlier research shows how male teachers negotiate masculinities when being in and entering a predominantly feminine work area, such as early childhood education [see, for example, Brody, D. L. (2015). The construction of masculine identity among men who work with young children, an international perspective. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 23(3), 351–361; Pirard, F., Schoenmaeckers, P., & Camus, P. (2015). Men in childcare services: From enrolment in training programmes to job retention. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 23(3), 362–369; Simpson, R. (2014). Doing gender differently. Men in caring occupations. In S. Kumra, R. Simpson, & R. J. Burke (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of gender in organizations (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press)]. It this article Connell's notion on hegemonic masculinity is reflected on in terms of negotiation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 men attending the preschool teacher-training programmes at three Swedish universities. The result shows two main themes for negotiation that were called ‘Becoming and being a “breaker”’ and ‘Coping with sticking out’