Nursery World - Modelling mould-breaking, not ‘maleness'

We need to clarify exactly why we want more men in early years, says lecturer Dr Geoff Taggart

There are two reasons usually given for wanting more men in early years settings, one of them is noble and laudable and the other is more suspect and controversial. Unfortunately, both of them get discussed at the same time, within the same meeting, the same article or even the same sentence and this has the effect of muddying the waters. If we can be clearer about exactly why we want more men in early years, it will make it more likely to happen.

The first reason given is that the current early years workforce is not representative of society at large and this is a problem, given that young children need to see a broad range of people to identify with.

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