Principle or dialogue: Pre-school directors speak about how they handle parents’ suspicions towards men

Kindergarten coordinators who have male employees on their staff, or who want to employ men, often have to deal with parents’ suspicions towards men in kindergartens that are related to the fear of paedophilia. The purpose of the study is to describe and analyse how kindergarten coordinators reason about the parental suspicion and concern that male educators can encounter because they are men.  The research question is: How do kindergarten coordinators relate to suspicion and concern from parents regarding male kindergarten employees?

The results show that the kindergarten coordinators have experienced that parents want male employees to refrain from performing certain tasks in kindergartens. Some of the coordinators then adopt a principle-based attitude and emphasise that men and women should carry out the same tasks. Other coordinators choose a conversational approach, focusing on dialogue with concerned parents.

The empirical data consists of interviews with ten Swedish kindergarten teachers, five women and five men. The kindergartens were strategically selected, where the selection criteria were that the kindergartens were in municipalities of different sizes, the kindergarten coordinators were educated kindergarten teachers, they had extensive experience in the profession and that they all had male employees on their staff. A key question in the interviews was: Have you experienced or been told that parents have certain opinions about male employees and physical contact with their children? The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.

Hedlin, M. & Åberg, M. (2019). “Principle or dialogue: Pre-school directors speak about how they handle parents’ suspicions towards men”. Power and Education. 2019, 11(1):85–95.