Listening to Male Foster Carers’ Experiences of Fostering

This research considers how male foster carers experience the role when fostering in a male-female partnership and the gendered discourses of parenting that is present due to patriarchal and hegemonic beliefs around child nurturement. I will identify the influences which have shaped fostering practices including reference to the gender/sex binary, early socialisation, family, parenting, and societal expectations to consider how this impacts how male foster carers position themselves and how they are positioned by others.

Adopting an insider outsider positionality, this relativist and relational ontological study is supported by a narrative methodology. I draw from a psycho-social constructionism and feminist research paradigm to underpin the research. Furthermore, I utilise the Listening Guide which is a feminist method of narrative analysis to interpret the stories of three male foster carers privileging their voices.

The interpretation highlights that men play an active role in fostering, experiencing a sense of satisfaction, pride and enjoyment in the role. Expressions of ‘doing gender’ can be identified in response to household responsibilities but redressed when changes in the family system occur or concerns about how they are positioned by others identified, thus dominant discourses prevalent in fostering are questioned. Furthermore, concepts of permanence, belonging, and love are explored. As the male foster carers identify high levels of commitment to the children placed with them which extends to other family members and into adulthood for the young person, discourses of family are also questioned. The research considers how Educational Psychologists (EPs) through an awareness of the self and intersectionality can support foster carers and indeed parents, during all stages of an assessment and how care must be taken to ensure that what is written about young people and their families is accurate and authentic.