Doing men's work?: discipline, power and the primary school in Taiwan

Abstract

This article examines the masculinization of discipline and its interplay with power in the primary school through an exploration of teachers' gender and disciplinary work and roles by drawing on data from an ethnographic study conducted at a primary school in Taiwan. The research findings suggest that discipline was men's work due to women distancing themselves from discipline, the physical advantages of men and masculinity, and parental expectations. However, negative feelings and pressure towards disciplining were also revealed by men. This research evidence also indicates women were, or could be, as tough disciplinarians as men. More importantly, the masculinization of disciplining work and roles was linked to male domination in power. The teacher workplace culture may help to explain discipline as men's work and power as gendered.

Keywords::

• discipline
• gender
• masculinity
• primary teaching
• power

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. I am also grateful to Professor Harriet Bradley and Dr Katharine Charsley for their advice and support for this study.

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2013 Conference of TERA & PROMS (August 2013) and the 19th Taiwan Forum in Sociology of Education (June 2013).

Notes

^1. In Taiwanese primary schools, the management structure has four sections: the Student Affairs Section, the Academic Affairs Section, the General Affairs Section and the Counselling Section. Their leaders are known as deans. The Student Affairs Section is in charge of protecting pupils' security, monitoring pupils' management, control and disciplining, guiding students' characters, organizing school activities and events.

^2. In Taiwanese primary schools, there are six Years. Year 1 and Year 2 are termed as Low Years, Year 3 and Year 4 as Middle Years and Year 5 and Year 6 as High Years. A gender imbalance of female and male teachers reflected the fact that there were no male class teachers of Year 1, 2 and 3.

^3. The latter two volunteered to join when I asked other teachers of their willingness to be interviewed.

^4. The interview themes covered teachers' incentives for choosing teaching, teaching work, career advancement, teachers' pay, family responsibilities, disciplinary practices, the issue of teacher surplus and the principal's leadership, in addition to the themes for observations (the teaching work in the classroom, within the school and off-campus, relationships with parents, relationships with other teachers).

^5. What Mr Johnny meant was to emphasize the need for discipline rather than literally to carry out this form of punishment. In Taiwan, the MOE has officially prohibited teachers from carrying out corporal punishment to pupils in any situations.