Project NeO
(Re)Ordering Professional Care and Gender. The Call for ‘More Men‘ in Nursery Schools from the Perspectives of the Professionals
The discussion regarding “more male nurses in kindergardens” is currently present internationally. The public discussion involves multiple attributes for girls and boys as well as for their female and male nurses. The NeO Project sheds light on the nurses’ perspectives regarding the meaning of gender within early childhood education.
International debates regarding the under-representation of men in the social and educational sector have undergone significant change since the end of the 1990s. Over the past five years, these controversial debates have also reached the German public and the educational system. For example, the German government has started to implement a program called ‚MEHR Männer in Kitas‘. Discourse analyses on these debates show that the strongest argument refers to approaches of socialization theory: More men are required because their presence is necessary for proper/successful processes of learning and development of children, especially boys. The analyses also show that the public discussion works with gender stereotypes while at the same time reproducing these kinds of stereotypes. A gap in research is how the educational staff of childcare centers/ nursery schools themselves discusses these questions. For that reason, the research project NeO undertakes focus group discussions in Frankfurt as a pilot study that are analyzed by means of discourse analysis, and subsequently intends to undertake a larger study comprising different federal states in Germany.
Selected Publications
Fegter, S. (2012). Die Forderung nach ‚mehr Männern’ in Bildung und Erziehung als Gerechtigkeitsproblem. Betrifft Mädchen, 25, 4–10.
Fegter, S. (2013). Mehr Männer in die Soziale Arbeit?! Zur diskursiven Entstehung einer aktuellen Forderung. In K.-P. Sabla, & M. Plößer (Eds.), Gendertheorien und Theorien Sozialer Arbeit. Bezüge, Lücken und Herausforderungen (pp. 145–162). Opladen: Barbara Budrich.
Fegter, S. (2014). Von anwesenden Frauen und abwesenden Männern. Zur Entstehung der Forderung nach “mehr Männern” im Sozial- und Bildungswesen. In L. Rose & M. May (Eds.), Mehr Männer in die Soziale Arbeit!? Kontroversen, Konflikte und Konkurrenzen (pp. 17-28). Opladen: Barbara Budrich.