The feminization of Early Childhood Education. About a study of male students at the University of Malaga

The aim of this article is to investigate some of the historical, social and educational issues that have been contributing the feminization phenomenon in the Pre-Elementary Education Bachelor's Degree. From a qualitative and interpretative paradigm and from in-depth interviews and discussion groups, we approach the school, social, family and university experience of seven male students enrolled in the Pre-Elementary Education Bachelor's degree at the University of Malaga during the following periods: t 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2018/19. Based on individual, collective and focus group interviews, we approach their own personal, social and educational experiences, which are linked to the choice and training in this professional itinerary. The students' stories reveal (1) social, educational and family discourses that reduce the profession of Early Childhood Education teachers and that link it both explicitly and implicitly with the female gender and with feminized educational functions; (2) stereotyped and limiting training trajectories in terms of gender, and, (3) feminized and feminizing discourses and actions of positive discrimination on the part of university teachers that have generated discomfort among male students. Knowing how this process has developed and in what situations these discourses and actions are manifested is essential to deploy social and educational actions that counteract it and that transform the vision and discourses that society in general and the educational community in particular have about the male teachers of Early Childhood Education.