The majority of female educators and ECEC centre administrators value the enriching contribution male educators make to the educational work of their institutions. Working relations between male and female staff at ECEC facilities are not always free of conflict, however. When a man joins an all-female team, gender-related issues can come to the surface, sometimes revealing aspects of the institution’s everyday activities of which staff members were not previously aware. The Coordination Centre for Men in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is committed to ensuring that gender knowledge (theory and practice) is an integral component of the professional training received by caregivers and educators. Furthermore, the Centre provides ECEC providers and ECEC facilities with materials to facilitate dialogue and reflection on their own attitudes, prejudices and expectations of members of the opposite sex. These resources can also help ECEC staff to understand and change gender stereotypes in the division of gender roles and to find new ways of working and communicating with one another. more
