A Trio-Ethnography conducted by
Rick Breault, West Virginia University
Raine Hackler, Principal, Main Street Charter School  
                     (Atlanta, GA)
Rebecca Bradley, formerly in Cobb County (GA) Public 
                         Schools

















Document Links
Methodology                           Points to Ponder
Prologue                                 Reference List
Background Stories

Annotated Transcripts
     Hour 1
     Hour 2
     Hour 3

Reflective Essays
1 Where are the guys you're talking about?
2 Revisionist History
3 Girl/friends, not girlfriends.

Excursuses
1 How many men are really out there?
2 Anticipatory Socialization
3 King's Uncommon Caring
4 The femininization of curriculum

In this first official "trio"-ethnography two men and one woman examine how they have come to construct their meanings about what it means to be an effective male teacher in an elementary classroom. More specifically, the conversation begins by exploring the extent to which early gender identity construction determines a man's atypical decision to become an elementary teacher but continues by examining how later gender identity is shaped by experiences in a nearly all-female environment and how we have defined "effectiveness" in general and in our own teaching. The impact of society's gender stereotyping on the profession and on our own decisions is also examined through the personal stories. The perspective of a female teacher was added early in the conversation when it was discovered that her experiences with male teachers might serve as both a "corrective" to our own possibly idealistic or romanticized perspectives and as a complementary voice in that she also felt that her professional identity is very different from her female colleagues.

Before the project came to its logical end, we each made job changes that in the case of Rick and Rebecca put them in states far from Georgia. Moreover, Rebecca became engrossed in her dissertation work and experienced other conditions that limited the time she could give to this research. Raine remains in Georgia, but took on the principalship of a new charter school which demands much of his time and energy. While we all remain in casual and occasional contact with each other, this project has taken a more individual direction for Rick, who continues to explore some of the personal and methodological implications of the conversations.