Male teacher shortage: black teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

In this paper the authors draw on the perspectives of black teachers to provide a more nuanced analysis of male teacher shortage. Interviews with two Caribbean teachers in Toronto, Canada, are employed to illuminate the limits of an explanatory framework that foregrounds the singularity of gender as a basis for advocating male teachers as role models. The study concludes that educational policy attempting to address male teacher shortage would benefit from engaging with both analytic frameworks and empirical research that is capable of unravelling the politics of representation and intersectionality as they relate to addressing questions of male teacher shortage in elementary schools.

Keywords:

• black teachers
• race
• gender
• role modelling
• masculinities

Notes

1. We use the term ‘elementary’ to refer to the years of schooling from grade 1 (ages 5–6) to grade 7 (ages 11–12). In the Canadian context the word ‘primary’ refers specifically to grades 1–3.

2. Jones (2006) highlights the absence of female teachers’ perspectives from the public discourse about male teacher shortage and argues that they have the potential to inform policy about teacher recruitment and debates about the calls to regender the primary/elementary school teaching profession.

3. This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; 410‐2006‐115381).