Back to the future on gender and anti‐school boys: a response to Jeffrey Smith

This article examines recent claims by Jeffrey Smith that: (1) ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is an expression of working class counter‐school culture; (2) some teachers are ‘cultural accomplices’ in constructing ‘hegemonic masculinities’ of anti‐school working class boys, thereby contributing to their underachievement; and (3) these ‘cultural accomplices’ are an emerging response to recent moral panics and neo‐liberal managerialism concerned with ‘failing boys’ at school. It is suggested that ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is not necessarily associated with anti‐school values in working class culture. Many working class boys might subscribe to ‘hegemonic masculinity’ without rejecting learning. Contrary to Smith’s emphasis on how working class culture generates anti‐school ‘hegemonic masculinity’, there is the possibility that ‘hegemonic masculinity’ is fused with anti‐school values produced by organisational differentiation. The continuing commonalities between working class anti‐school boys and the ‘gender regime’ of some secondary schools for over 20 years implies something more enduring at work than recent moral panics.     

We don’t play with gays,they’re not real boys … they can’t fight: Hegemonic masculinity and (homophobic) violence in the primary years of schooling

Whenever masculinity and school violence are considered in South African research, the focus is often on the high school. In this paper, we consider a different direction by drawing on Connell’s (1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity to understand the workings of power and violence amongst a group of South African primary school boys. Little is known about how forces of hegemonic masculinity operate to shape every day gender relations amongst younger boys. Against this background, this paper focuses on a particular group of boys, between 10 and 13 years old, who attend a ‘black’, working-class primary school in South Africa. In addition, they identify themselves as ‘real boys’, where being a ‘real boy’ is inextricably linked to violent ‘performances’ of hegemonic masculinity on the school playground during break time. The paper explores how these boys use forms of violence to claim control of the playground space and to exclude, marginalise and denigrate the other group of boys whom they construct as ‘unmasculine’ and ‘gay’. The findings raise implications for ways of curbing the violence, such as working with the boys to promote non-violent interpretations of performing, being and becoming a ‘real boy’.     

Foregrounding intersectionality in rural youth’s schooling experiences in China: a queer re-reading

This article uses a queer lens in an intersectional analysis of students’ schooling experiences in rural China. I argue that a queer perspective has been largely neglected and issues related to sexuality have not been carefully investigated in Chinese educational contexts. Drawing on queer theory and an intersectional framework, I re-interpret one of my earlier qualitative studies ‘queerly’ and examine the different ways that the discourses of sexuality and gender shape rural Chinese students’ schooling lives. Findings reveal that these discourses marginalize both effeminate boys who demonstrate ‘too little’ masculinity and male ‘troublemakers’ who perform ‘too much’ masculinity. This queer route of rereading also disrupts other constructions of normalcy associated with class- and place-based identities, such as students’ ‘half-rural identity.’ The analysis shows the importance of foregrounding the intersectional dimensions of inequalities and embracing a queer theoretical framework in understanding rural education in China.     

Tilting the playing field: ‘Redshirting’ kindergarten boys in the US and the competition for hegemonic masculinity

This study examines patterns in the kinds of discourses parents use to think about when to start their children in kindergarten in the US. Parents of three- to six-year olds were interviewed to gain an understanding of how parents make the ‘redshirting’ decision and the extent to which parental concern for sons’ achievement of successful masculinity plays into that choice. Focusing on the parents of male children, this analysis reveals parents employ two gender-related discourses: (1) the ‘failing boys’ backlash debate, surrounding the notion that schools are assumed to favour girls and how girls learn, and (2) a discourse involving the importance of hegemonic masculinity in competition with other boys.     

Re/theorising gender: female masculinity and male femininity in the classroom?

Recent gender theorising has been enlivened by post‐structuralist accounts of gender as ‘disembodied’; the reading of gender performances as distinct from sexed bodies. However, there has been little application of such theoretical positions to empirical analysis in gender and education. This article employs two such positions – that of ‘female masculinity and male femininity’, and that of ‘gender monoglossia and heteroglossia’ – to data raised from a research project on high‐achieving pupils. It is argued that although cases of female masculinity and male femininity are identified, such labels can usefully be applied to only a very small number of pupils, and even here there are profound problems in the conceptual application. The concept of gender heteroglossia appeared applicable to a far larger number of pupils. It is argued that this latter concept offers a less rigid application, that can incorporate analysis both of continuing patterns of gender inequality (as reflective of gender monoglossia), and of individual, gender‐transgressive (heteroglossic) performances.     

Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

This paper is about how 9–11-year-old children, particularly girls, co-construct tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions. The paper sits within a theoretical framework in which I understand individual and collective masculinities and femininities as ways of ‘doing man/woman’ or ‘doing boy/girl’ that are constructed within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice. Empirical data come from a one-year study of tomboy identities within two London primary schools. The paper explores the contrasting identities of tomboy and girly-girl, how they are constructed by the children, and how this changes as they approach puberty. The findings suggest that the oppositional construction of these identities makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though it is possible to switch between tomboy and girly-girl identities at different times and places.     

Underperformance or ‘getting it right’? Constructions of gender and achievement in the Australian inquiry into boys’ education

The underachievement of boys has been a focus of intense concern in Australia for over 15 years. Historical analyses suggest that male students’ poor performance has traditionally been attributed to factors external to boys themselves (methods, teachers, texts), deflecting attention from the relationship between masculinity construction and successful engagement with school. This paper turns the focus back, addressing the ways in which gender itself was constructed within hearings held for the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys’ Education. Discursive analysis demonstrates that witnesses to the Inquiry drew upon a series of gender binaries in representing male and female students, and accounting for their relative attainment. These binaries worked to associate masculinity with ‘authentic’ learning, such that the success of male students was naturalised even in the absence of achievement. Conversely, the association of femininity and ‘inauthentic learning’ worked to undermine female students’ demonstrated success. The role of these binaries in the reproduction of a paradoxical relationship between gender and achievement is discussed.     

Slappers who gouge your eyes: vocal performance as exemplification of disturbing inertia in gender equality

This article is based upon a full‐time study of masculinity and singing funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Empirical work was conducted with boy performers and ‘peer audiences’ for those performers in schools. The article focuses on girls’ attitudes to boy singers and reveals a significant difference between primary and secondary schooling. In primary schools, girls are the more responsible for discouraging boys but in secondary schools the male peer group becomes more critical whilst girls increasingly perceive boy singers as ‘cute’. It is possible to construct a strong case for single‐sex groupings but the empirical work suggests this may turn out to be misguided. The article concludes that there is an urgent need for girls and boys to learn mutual respect in the context of the music class. The evidence suggests that teachers require a significantly enhanced level of gender‐related subject knowledge, gender awareness and interpersonal skill.     

Guys and ‘the rest of us’: tales of gendered aptitude and experience in educational carework

A history of framing the teaching of young children as a matter of ‘natural’ female aptitude has led a number of researchers and educators to oversimplify men's experiences as a foil or antidote to the ills of schooling. In this qualitative study of men, women, and ‘feminisation’ in early education and care environments, interview data (N?=?4) are discursively analysed to provide a more nuanced understanding of how male and female careworkers construct and orient themselves in relation to masculinity and maleness.     

‘Playing with or like the girls’: advancing the performance of ‘multiple masculinities in Black boys’ childhood play’ in U.S. early childhood classrooms

Play is a gendered activity among young children, especially boys. Boys often tend to be more actively engaged in the (re)production of gendered play. However, most research studies and conceptual papers have misread, ignored, devalued, or scrutinized the gendered ways Black boys engage in play. This idea is particularly true for Black boys who may not play within the monolithic gendered expectations of childhood play. Drawing from [Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press] notion of multiple masculinities, I propose what I call the performance of ‘multiple masculinities of Black boys’ childhood play’ to embrace the ways some Black boys engage in play activities, which may not fit within the performance of hegemonic and Black masculine norms and expectations. In so doing, I call for educators to broaden how we view Black boys, and our definition of Black masculinity so that embracing what might be traditionally called ‘less masculine’ and/or stereotypically feminine could be valued male traits. Recommendations are provided for early childhood educators to support the confluence of ways Black boys engage in play experiences.     

Reconceptualizing the gendered body: learning and constructing masculinities and femininities in school

How children learn to construct and enact masculinities and femininities is clearly an issue for education and one that has been explored in a wide variety of ways. In recent years, however, our conceptions of gender have once again become problematic, particularly given a gradual slippage regarding the sex/gender distinction and the increasing use of ‘gender’ to refer to matters of biology as well as those pertaining to the social. We now need to rethink how we understand what it is to be male and female, masculine and feminine, and whether the sex/gender distinction and related dualisms are useful to our conceptualization of gender. One way to do this is to focus on the construction of gender in the social systems of which children are a part, including the schooling system. In this paper I consider the legacy of Cartesian dualism both for our understanding of sex and gender and for the schooling system, exploring the interconnections between the two. I examine how the Cartesian legacy underpins the disciplinary and curriculum structures of schools and explore the implications for the ways in which we, as researchers and teachers, view and treat children in schools. Finally, I argue that researchers working in gender and education need to take much more account of the specificities of children’s bodies.     

Children’s sibling relationships and gendered practices: talk,activity and dealing with change

This article addresses children’s sibling relationships as a site of social learning involving the (re)production of femininity and masculinity, drawing on in‐depth qualitative interviews with children aged 8–12. We begin by noting the lack of focus on gender in the majority of previous work on siblings. After introducing our own study, we look at the ways in which children understood their siblings in relation to themselves, highlighting points of closeness and division, and pointing to class distinctions around individuality and collectivity. We then explore how ‘talk’ and ‘activity’ are key gendered features of children’s relationships with their sisters and brothers, revealing versions of femininity and masculinity, and interplays of power. Finally, we consider how these gendered features of sibling practices have implications for children’s ability to deal with change in relationships with their sisters and brothers, especially living apart from each other, and we return to class as a feature of their understandings.     

Complexities of Vietnamese femininities: a resource for rethinking women's university leadership practices

This paper develops a dialogical encounter between northern-inspired theorisations of gender and Vietnam's historical and cultural differentiation identified through the presence of matriarchy in ancient societies and its popularity in folklore and contemporary politics. The article draws on interviews with 12 senior women from 8 universities in Northern and Southern Vietnam. Three main themes are explored: (1) the Vietnamese woman as ‘general of the interior’; (2) the ‘woman behind the throne’; and (3) ‘behind a woman is another woman’. These themes illustrate the distinctiveness of a historically produced Vietnamese gender order as reflected in current university women's experience. By providing insights into the complex dynamics of Vietnamese women's ‘informal power’, as evident in both spheres of home and university, the paper presents a discussion of forms of Vietnamese femininity that contributes to re-theorising Connell's concepts of ‘hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity’.     

Learning crafts as practices of masculinity. Finnish male trainee teachers' reflections and experiences

Craft education in Finland has long gendered traditions that effect the present situation. The aim of this paper is to analyse the processes of learning the interlinking of crafts and gender. The analysis concentrates on male trainee teachers' experiences of craft education in comprehensive schools in Finland. Data were collected through memory work and autobiographical writing. The analysis revealed how the boys had linked the term ‘technical crafts’ with masculinity, (1) as part of their upbringing at home surrounded by the gender order of their childhood families; (2) following the school model that technical crafts are a masculine sphere for boys; and (3) the importance and pressures of the boys' peer culture. Through learning crafts, the boys were learning the masculinities of their local ‘communities of practices’. The prospective teachers' reflections revealed the importance of studying gender issues in teacher education.     

Cool Guys,Swots and Wimps: the interplay of masculinity and education

Most educational work concerned with changes in gender relations has been addressed to girls, justified on ‘equal opportunity’ principles, and governed by ‘sex‐role’ theories. This framework is not very relevant to educational work with boys, yet gender issues arise here too. The paper presents retrospective data on schooling from the life‐histories of two groups of men, drawn from a larger study of contemporary changes in masculinity. Unemployed working‐class men recall ‘getting into trouble’, a process of constructing masculinity through conflict with the institutional authority of the school. Here, the school, as part of the state represents a power they cannot participate in. However, the school is also a site of the differentiation of masculinities. Some working‐class boys embrace a project of mobility in which they construct a masculinity organised around themes of rationality and responsibility. This is closely connected with the ‘certification’ function of the upper levels of the educational system and to a key form of masculinity among professionals. Some young men from this background, however, reject the connection with abstracted knowledge and bureaucratic authority, among them men interviewed who are in the environmental movement. A number of these men had encountered feminism first‐hand, for instance through feminist texts. Where there are low levels of literacy, especially political literacy, feminist influence on men is slight. On the other hand, a common reaction among men who do study feminist writing is a demobilising guilt. A major opportunity for educational action exists, but there are difficulties in designing it. Broadly, the strongest effects of schooling on the construction of masculinity are the indirect effects of streaming and failure, authority pattern, the academic curriculum and definitions of knowledge—rather than the direct effects of equity programmes or courses dealing with gender. This is a major strategic problem for reform. Two criteria for action can be suggested: curricula need to be designed to broaden boys’ sources of information about sexuality and gender; programmes need to be designed that allow for practical accomplishment on these issues, not open‐ended problem identification alone.     

‘She's alpha male’: transgressive gender performances in the probation ‘classroom’

The past decade has seen an exponential rise in the popularity of cognitive–behavioural programmes as a means of rehabilitating ‘offenders’. Although the programmes have been evaluated by a number of researchers, very little qualitative work exists, particularly with regard to the discourses mobilised by practitioners, and the production of gendered subjectivities in this setting. Consequently, this article focuses on one woman, ‘Michelle’, who attended an Aggression Replacement Training programme as part of her probation sentence. By drawing on Francis’ [2010. Re/theorizing gender: Female masculinity and male femininity in the classroom. Gender and Education] notion of gender monoglossia and heteroglossia I aim to provide a nuanced account of Michelle's seemingly straightforward ‘performance’ of ‘female masculinity’ [Halberstam, J. 1998. Female masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press]. Through an analysis of the discourses mobilised by practitioners I also demonstrate that within this discursive environment the rehabilitation of female ‘offenders’ continues to be one of conformity to traditional ‘feminine’ gender norms as well as a desistance from crime.     

Men and Masculinities in Europe

gender, masculinities, and masculinity construction have been remaining a focus for research. In this article it will explain the understanding of gender and doing gender; display different types of masculinities; illustrate the masculinity construction in the area of bodies, sports and health; and discuss the reasons, challenges and ways to face the masculinities and gender inequality.     

Normative cruelties and gender deviants: The performative effects of bully discourses for girls and boys in school

Since the 1990s the educational community has witnessed a proliferation of ‘bullying’ discourses, primarily within the field of educational developmental social psychology. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative interview data of primary and secondary school girls and boys, this article argues that the discourse ‘bullying’ operates to simplify and individualise complex gendered/classed/sexualised/racialised power relations embedded in children's school‐based cultures. Using a feminist post‐structural approach, this article critically traces the discursive production of how the signifiers ‘bully’ and ‘victim’ are implicated in the ‘normative cruelties’ of performing and policing ‘intelligible’ heteronormative masculinities and femininities. It shows how these everyday gender performances are frequently passed over by staff and pupils as ‘natural’. The analysis also illustrates how bully discourses operate in complex racialised and classed ways that mark children out as either gender deviants, or as not adequately performing normative ideals of masculinity and femininity. In conclusion, it is argued that bully discourses offer few symbolic resources and/or practical tools for addressing and coping with everyday school‐based gender violence, and some new research directions are suggested.     

Education for women: whose values count?

This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on women's education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as ideological in nature, rather than a technical matter of tackling ‘drop out’ from women's literacy classes or getting more girls into school. From talking about ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘access’, we need to think more about what is being changed to what and whose values underlie specific educational approaches.     

The game within the game: girls' underperforming position in Physical Education

Since 1980 the Swedish compulsory school curriculum has stipulated that Physical Education (PE) should be taught co-ed and schools are legally required to promote gender equality. The latest evaluation of PE in Sweden shows that more boys than girls ranked the subject highly and that they had a higher level of activity during the PE lessons. Drawing on a case study, the aim of this article is to illuminate how games placed girls and boys in different subject positions. The logic governing the observed lessons was ‘proper game’, i.e. playing according to the official rules. Combined with hegemonic masculinity and the passivity of the teacher, this kind of logic resulted in the game being dominated by several dominant boys and by the ball-playing girls either being positioned or allowing themselves to be placed in situations in which they consistently underperformed. A gender category in late modernity, resting on hegemonic masculinity, can be seen as a cultural flashpoint that reflects problems in society rather than problems in the gym.