Differences? Similarities? Male teacher, female teacher: An instrumental case study of teaching in a Head Start classroom

Male teachers are rare in early childhood education (ECE). Interest in increasing the number of male ECE teachers is often driven by essentialist assumptions about male teachers bringing something unique to classroom teaching by virtue of being men. To explore this assumption, the author conducted an instrumental case study of a team of Head Start teachers: one female, one male. Differences were found, but similarities between the two teachers were determined to be of much greater importance. Reasons for the findings are explored, and a brief argument is made for greater male teacher involvement in ECE classrooms based on other than essentialist grounds.