Student Affairs Professionals Teaching In Higher Education: A Deconstruction Of A Men And Masculinities Course

The purpose of my study was to use the framework of feminist poststructuralism and Derrida’s ongoing process of deconstruction to examine how men who teach men and masculinities courses negotiated their own masculinity while teaching their course. In doing this deconstruction, I exposed the fragility of meaning in the men and masculinities classroom and the fluidity of the instructor's complicity with and disruption of traditional, hegemonic masculinity. I used deconstruction and Jackson and Mazzei’s Thinking with Theory (2012) as a starting point in order to view and re-see the transcripts of semi-structured interviews with self-identified cisgender men who teach men and masculinities courses at public, four year, higher educational institutions.Additionally, through feminist poststructural analysis, specific strategies of instructors remaining complicit with traditional hegemonic masculinity and disrupting traditional, hegemonic masculinity allowed for them to convey a message that is, ultimately, hopeful of disruption of masculinity’s norms and grand narratives. This research ultimately ends with the implications and recommendations for future educators and higher education leaders having the recommendations being presented as a way of opening of knowledge and opening new opportunities in the men and masculinities classroom.