Toxic Masculinity Masking as Cultural Relevancy: Latino Men Navigating Heteropatriarchal Expectations of Manhood in the Teaching Profession

Abstract

In this qualitative study, Michael V. Singh deconstructs how and why Latino men teachers are asked to perform a culturally relevant manhood in the classroom. He looks at the ways these teachers experience and navigate the heteropatriarchal expectations associated with their teaching and gender performance, which are often (mis) framed as “cultural relevancy” and reproduce hegemonic and toxic masculinity. The eleven Latino men in this study described such expectations as coming from teachers and administrators, who positioned them to embody tropes of the macho Mexican patriarch who disciplines unruly boys, and also from students, who sometimes wanted their teachers to perform a Latino manhood admired for its physical and sexual power. The participants also recounted how they navigated these expectations in ways that disrupted and queered the figure of the culturally relevant Latino man teacher. This study deconstructs how and why Latino men teachers are asked to perform a culturally relevant manhood in the classroom.