Maneuvering suspicions of being a potential pedophile: experiences of male ECEC-workers in Sweden

Abstract

Previous research has described a discourse where men working within Early Childhood Education and Care are viewed as potential pedophiles. The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how men, working in Swedish preschools, position themselves in relation to this pedophile discourse. Twenty-five men were interviewed about their work-experiences and the result shows two dominating positions: (1) giving up or (2) maneuvering the pedophile discourse. The discourse is maneuvered by: avoiding certain tasks, do the tasks but in ways that minimize suspicion or do the tasks without acknowledging the personal risk, as the tasks are required in their professional role. Thereby, men do not have the same ability to develop professionalism in childcare as women. However, by overcoming the fear of the pedophile discourse, these men create 'new discourses', where men can be viewed as caregivers. The result highlights an overall question, of what a professional approach is when it comes to care for children in ECEC. KEYWORDS

Big news stories and longitudinal data collection: A prominent child sexual abuse case negatively affects parents’ attitudes toward male caregivers

“…According to previous studies in varying cultural contexts (Arendt & Northup, 2015;Mertens et al, 2019;Popović, 2018a;Windzio & Kleimann, 2009), news coverage can negatively affect attitudes toward specific groups. The negative influence of news coverage of CSA on attitudes toward male childcare professionals has been suggested before (Eidevald et al, 2018;Munk et al, 2013). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time this effect has been studied.…”

“…There is evidence that parents associate male childcare professionals with pedophilia and CSA (Rentzou, 2011; Sak et al, 2019). A link between the attention for CSA in news media and a rise in suspicion toward male childcare workers among parents, especially mothers, has been theorized in research (Eidevald et al, 2018; Munk et al, 2013), but to the best of our knowledge this relation has not yet been studied.…”

“…News messages have been found to perpetuate stereotypes about perpetrators (Cromer & Goldsmith, 2010) as well as elicit stereotypical responses from the public (Popović, 2018a). Increased coverage of CSA in childcare could therefore lead to a more negative attitude toward men working in early childcare education (Eidevald et al, 2018; Munk et al, 2013). This may subsequently influence attitudes and behaviors that are being studied.…”

Touch the Children, or Please Don’t – Preschool Teachers’ Approach to Touch

“…However, since gender differences was not significance tested because the male group (n = 16) was too small for meaningful inferences to be made, it would be of interest in future studies to explore this with a larger sample of male participants. Previous studies have also demonstrated that men working in early childhood education and care need to relate to the risk that others will think of them as potential pedophiles (Eidevald, 2016;Eidevald et al, 2018;Heikkilä, 2015). From a gender perspective, men who choose to work in early childhood education and care are breaking traditional norms concerning what men are expected to work with (Heikkilä, 2015;Pruit, 2015).…”

Procuring Gender-Situated Voices of Male Early Childhood Professionals in Canada

“…With reference to male ECECs the most salient theme uncovered in the literature pertains to fear of being accused of sexual misconduct due to society’s propensity to view them as a sexual threat (Bhana et al, 2021 ; Eidevald et al, 2018 ; Foster & Newman, 2005 ). Case in point, the supposition that male ECECs constitute a sexual threat is identified within Sargent’s ( 2004 ) study as the single greatest hinderance to increasing male participation.…”