Just a knock back? Identity bruising on the route to becoming a male primary school teacher

Men who choose to do ‘women’s work’ and enter the female culture of the primary school can often initially face a range of stereotyped responses to their choice. Drawing on stories from a small sample of trainee and serving male teachers, we adopt the term ‘identity bruising’ to describe the ‘knock backs’ that occur to them in primary schools. How the men react to ‘bruising’ is of considerable interest, given the current concern in the UK to improve the recruitment and retention of men in primary training and teaching. An inductive and reflexive methodology is used whereby we work with the men to explore how they become aware of, understand and negotiate the problematic nature and gendered assumptions of masculinities that underpin the restrictions that they encounter.