Working with Boys

The author, a Special Educational Needs Co‐ordinator in an inner city primary school in North London describes an Equal Opportunities project that involved working with boys in a single sex group. The project sought to address theoretical concerns around sex stereotyping, peer group hierarchies and the greater level of alienation from the educational system boys seem to experience at primary stage. The article evaluates the effectiveness of the project to raise awareness and support change in relation to a number of significant issues — racism, sexism, bullying and collaborative group processes.     

'Spice Girls', 'Nice Girls', 'Girlies', and 'Tomboys': Gender discourses,girls' cultures and femininities in the primary classroom

The past decade has seen a growing political and academic concern with boys' underachievement. Drawing on the case study of a London primary classroom, this article argues that contemporary gendered power relations are more complicated and contradictory than the new orthodoxy that girls are doing better than boys suggests. The girls in this case study took up very varied positions in relation to traditional femininities. Yet, despite widely differentiated practices, all the girls at various times acted in ways which bolstered boys' power at the expense of their own. While peer group discourses constructed girls as harder working, more mature and more socially skilled, still the boys and a significant number of the girls adhered to the view that it is better being a boy. The article concludes that in this particular primary school, girls and boys still learned many of the old lessons of gender relations which work against gender equity.     

Intersections of Gender,Race and Class in the Primary School

In order to highlight the gender dimension of groupwork I undertook a piece of research in an inner city primary school. My aim was to discover how the group dynamic is affected by altering the gender composition. Consequently I set up a research project in which two groups of primary aged children, one mixed sex, the other girls only, worked on an identical craft, design and technology task. My research findings illuminate the contradictions, complexities and paradox with which issues of gender in the primary school are riven. The findings support the view that the impact of gender on girls is not uniform and consistent across boundaries of race and class but that the three categories are inextricably interwoven. Race and class make significant contributions to any discourse on inequality and although my research is purportedly about gender, the evidence revealed a need for far more investigation into the ways in which gender intersects with race and class.     

Girls’ Groups as a Component of Anti‐sexist Practice—one primary school's experience

The gender project I have been involved in was a practical response to theoretical concerns regarding the impact of the hidden curriculum and sex stereotyping in primary schools. The aim of the project was primarily to improve the level of achievement of the girls. Equally important was a desire to broaden curriculum experience into non‐stereotypical areas for both boys and girls. Unlike similar projects, Preston School's single sex groups were monitored throughout their duration. Consequently there are substantially more data on the attitudes of teachers, girls and boys towards gender than are normally available for such projects. This article constitutes an attempt by one of the teachers involved to evaluate the efficacy of Preston School's initiative within a theoretical framework that explores the wider issues of gendered subjectivity, male sexism and female self‐depreciation.     

The working classes and higher education: Meritocratic fallacies of upward mobility in the United Kingdom

The uniformly positive view of social mobility in the United Kingdom overlooks the difficulties working‐class young people have in reconciling a working‐class background with the middle‐class environments of the university and the professional labour market. But even more hidden are the subtle processes of exclusion and exclusivity that permeate social life in, particularly, the elite universities. Here, working‐class students' marginalisation in relation to advantageous social activities and networks, compromises their chances of later success in the labour market. This paper scrutinises working‐class students' experiences of elite higher education through the lens of Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capitals and field. Drawing on a research project on working‐class young people who gain entry to elite universities it analyses the disjunctures between working‐class habitus and the field of elite higher education, focusing on the emotional and social consequences for working‐class students. The findings raise concerns—largely unexplored in existing research—about working‐class reception in elite fields. The paper concludes with a call to look beyond the attitudes and actions of working‐class students to those of their upper‐ and middle‐class peers, and the culture and ethos of the elite universities.     

Uncovering Genealogies of the Margins: black supplementary schooling

In our small scale, exploratory study of four black supplementary schools, we adopted a genealogical approach. By uncovering the subjugated knowledges and hidden histories of black supplementary schools we found evidence of a female centred new social movement. Our analysis of black female agency in these organic grassroots organisations enabled us to interrogate the normative mainstream discourse on ‘race’ and education. The narratives of black women educators consistently decentred assumptions of mainstream schooling. Supplementary schools provided a context in which whiteness is displaced as central and blackness is seen as normative. Parental involvement showed the effectiveness of black working class agency, in a discourse which assumes their passivity. We conclude by arguing that women's work within black supplementary schools embrace strategies for inclusion ‐‐ such as emphasis on the formal 3Rs, and dialogue with the mainstream ‐‐ which though appearing on the surface to be conservative and contradictory, in effect subverts the mainstream discourse on black underachievement and offer transformative possibilities from the margins.