Why men stay away from teaching

I really enjoy your site and the information that you provide.

I am a kindergarten teacher who is currently finishing up his masters in curriculum development and am wondering if there are any resources out there that you can point me towards. The topic of my thesis is : When deciding to enter the field of Education, why do men flock to the levels of secondary and post-secondary education?

I am trying to find out why men decide to teach at a secondary or post secondary level, rather than early childhood or primary level.

I have three avenues of questioning for my topic and plan to interview education majors that have yet to graduate, men who teach in ECED or primary grades and men who teach at the secondary level.

I want to find out if there are certain stereotypes that drive men away from the field before they even start, or if there are influences I have yet to discover.

Most researchon the topic focuses on “why we need men in ECED” but I want to find out why men are staying away in the 1st place.

I have searched the ERIC database and found limited info. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Andrew Ambrose
ambrose531@yahoo.com

Additional comments:

I have only just begun to interview people for my research because I am just finishing my core requirements for my curriculum development major but one thing that I have found to this point which has surprised me is that many of the males in my classes decided to go into secondary education because they wanted to coach high school sports.

This is a variable that I never accounted for as I assumed there were only reasons such as influences while they were in school and academic/cognitive levels of the students they teach. This recent development has helped me become familiar with the local educational system and what it produces. I have recently moved to the area in which I go to school, I previously taught in Montgomery County Maryland and was a product of a local school system in Maryland. Washington state differs considerably from Maryland.

I will keep you updated as I begin to become more involved in the research.

Thanks for taking interest.