Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

Abstract

In 2003 the National Education Association annual survey revealed that male teachers currently make up 35% of America's kindergarten through 12 th grade classroom teaching cadre. In grades kindergarten through sixth grade, men comprise 9% of the classroom teachers, and only 2% of classroom teachers inkindergarten through third grade are men. In 1994 Sadker and Sadker published Failing at Fairness, which examined gender biases in American kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms, including the effects of the overwhelmingly-female faculties. At the National Education Association's 2002 Representative Assembly, members adopted a measure to "identify, recognize, recruit and retain," more male teachers, particularly elementary and minority male teachers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of pre-service elementary and early childhood male and female teaching candidatesthrough the use of the Important Concepts of a Career Scale developed by Galbraith (1992) and through the use of certain demographic data. This studyexamined the hypothesis that men who pursue nontraditional careers find the relational aspects of their work more important than the financial, power and prestige rewards. After the data (n = 63) were collected from the online demographic survey and Important Concepts of a Career Scale, descriptive statistics based on the demographic survey were displayed. The pre-service male teaching candidates came from familial backgrounds of lower educational levels with 50% of paternal parents having high school diplomas as their highest level of education. Standard statistical methodologies were used to report if male pre-service teaching candidates valued three relational aspects, general relationships, relationship with students, and relationships with peers, of their prospective careers over the financial, power and prestige aspects and if there were differences between male and female candidates' responses, as well as differences among the male candidates' responses. Participants rated items on the Important Concepts of a Career Scale on a four-point Likert Scale.

Results indicated that male pre-service teaching candidates valued the financial aspect of their career as more important than did the female pre-serviceteaching candidates. Male pre-service teaching candidates did not value general relationships as highly as did the female pre-service teaching candidates. There were no statistical differences between the male and female pre-service teaching candidates on rating relationships with students, relationships with peers, power, and prestige aspects. There were no differences on any of the items on the scale among the male respondents.

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