From Gardeners to Teachers

The aim of this book is to understand the inclusion of men in early childhood education, given that this stage of basic education is extremely feminized. Through bibliographical research, we first seek to understand how the first stage of basic education has become a predominantly female field of activity, and then how and why men have been occupying these jobs. In this way, we set out to deconstruct an already naturalized idea of nurseries and pre-schools being exclusively female spaces, as well as highlighting gender relations, exclusion and hierarchization in this field. Through the research, we found that the changes that have taken place in early childhood education in recent decades, from the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution to the approval of a new Law of Guidelines and Bases (LDB/96), have affected the status of this stage, which is now considered part of basic education. As a result, men have entered the profession more frequently, although it is still quite small.