Manliness and the gendered construction of school administration in the USA

Abstract

Schoolwork has been gender differentiated and stratified ever since women first entered the field in the early nineteenth century. Though there has been important historical scholarship describing the ‘feminization’ of teaching, there has been little corresponding discussion about the role of masculinity. In this article, the author argues that masculinity has been a powerful defining force in the historical development of school administration, and that much of the differentiation and stratification in schoolwork has been driven by the perceived need for creating acceptably masculine havens for men.