One of the most important factors is the attitude of early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ towards their profession because in each step of ECE positive attitudes of teachers are very important to support the positive development of children (Dockett & Perry, 2006; La Paro, Siepak & Scott-Little, 2009). Understanding pre-service teachers’ attitudes is another important issue (Mims, Scott-Little, Lower, Cassidy & Hestenes, 2008), because they are supposed be in-service teachers after graduating from university and quality of teaching process is not only related to educational background but also to the attitudes of in-service or pre-service teachers towards their profession (Hussain, Ali, Khan, Ramzan & Qadeer, 2011). There are a number of studies try to find out the effect of teachers’ attitudes in ECE however in most of them the scarcity of male participants is the major issue since ECE is a non-traditional occupation for men (Anliak & Beyazkurk, 2008; Russo & Feder, 2001). However, in the literature number of reports regarding the necessity for men in ECE settings is increasing. For instance, Russo and Feder (2001) commented that male teachers should be involved in ECE because this period is critically important in terms of learning social rules, norms and roles and men could be positive role models, especially for boys (Cameron, 2001). Unfortunately, despite the increasing number of publications, the number of male teachers is still considerably low. According to Gottfredson (2002) this situation is derived from society’s perceptions of female and male gender roles. Child rearing is perceived as a duty that should be undertaken by women (Russo & Feder, 2001) so, men working in such an occupation are considered as inappropriate (Dodson & Borders, 2006). Similarly, negative perceptions of society, like, being considered as unqualified for a men’s occupation, may discourage males from being ECE teachers (Dodson & Borders, 2006). Choice of a career is, generally, affected by one’s self-concept (Gottfredson, 2002; Holland, 1992) and Gottfredson (2002) regarded ‘sex type’ as the most injurious threat to self-concept and the most important motivation in career choice. However with respect to gender typing, non-traditional men have lower masculinity and higher femininity scores in BSRI (Dodson & Borders, 2006) and according to Bem (1993) self-concept  is strongly related to gender role rather than sex type (Bem, 1993). In the light of literature, research questions of the current study are:

(1)  Is there a significant difference in total attitude scores towards the profession of ECE for males and females?

(2) Is there a significant difference in total attitude scores towards the profession of ECE for masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated subjects?

(3) What is the impact of sex and gender role on total attitudes scores towards the profession of ECE?

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