보육과 여성: 어린이집 교사들의 보육에 대한 이해 = Korean child care teachers` gendered conceptualization of child care work

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study explores how five Korean child care teachers conceptualize their experience of gendered construction of child care work. Data were used from in-depth interviews and email conversations to gain participants` deeper understandings of their work as women`s work. Corbin and Strauss`s (2008) Constant Comparative Methods were used to collect and interpret the descriptive data. Findings from this qualitative study demonstrate that child care teachers viewed their work as gender appropriate, relational, and influenced by women`s culture. These three categories indicate how child care teachers rationalize their work as gendered, by essentializing themselves as women, by valuing their culture characterized as women`s culture, and by stigmatizing women`s culture. The participants` justification of their work as women`s work demonstrates how they are empowered by constructing and reconstructing the ideas, beliefs, and discourses of gender, women, and child care teachers prevailing in our society. Implications for teacher educators are discussed in terms of applying contemporary feminist and critical theories to early childhood teacher training programs in order to help preservice and inservice teachers make sense of their work and understand the realities of early childhood teachers.