Pupil's sexual and gender identities

Connell (1995)

• Experiences in school contribute to hegemonic masculinity

• This is the dominance of hetero masc identities and subordination of queer female ones

Double standards - Lees (1993) - sexual conquests

• Double standard of morality

• Sexual conquests have status among men and are negative among girls

  • Boys boast about sexual exploits

    • Girls called slag or prude

Double standards - feminist view

• Part of patriarchal ideology, justifying male power and devaluing women

• Form of social control and reinforces gender inequality

Verbal abuse - Connell

• ‘Rich vocab of abuse’ used to reinforce hegemonic masculinity

• Boys use of name calling to put girls down for their behaviour/dress

Verbal abuse - Lees (1986) - slags and drags

• Slags - sexually available girls

• Drags - non sexually available girls

Verbal abuse - Paechter - labels and name calling

• Name calling used to maintain male power and shape gender identity

• Use of labels used to police other’s sexual identities even if had no correlation with actual sexuality

  • Lezzie

  • Gay

  • Queer

Verbal abuse - Parker (1996) - being called gay

• Boys called gay for being friends with girls or female teachers

Male gaze - Mac an Ghaill

• Male teachers and pupils look girls up and down

  • See them as sexual objevts

  • Comment on their appearance

• Used as a form of surveillance to reinforce hegemonic masculinityy

• Way for boys to prove their masculinity to their friends

  • Also: retelling stories about sexual conquests

• Lack of displaying of sexuality = labelled as gay

Male peer groups -

• Use of verbal abuse to reinforce definition of masculinity

Male peer groups - Epstein and Willis

• Boys in anti-school subcultures accuse boys who want to do well of being effeminate/gay

Male peer groups - Mac an Ghaill (1994)

• Peer groups reproduce class-based identities

• W/C macho lads dismissive of aspirational W/C - ‘dickhead achievers’

• M/C real Englishmen strove for effortless achievement

Male peer groups - Redman and Mac an Ghaill (1997) - masculine identity

• Definition of masc identity shifts

  • Lower school: macho - W/C toughness

  • Upper school: real Englishmen - M/C intellectualism

  • Shows M/C atmosphere of sixth form

Female peer groups - Francis (2010) - M/C and W/C

• M/C female boffins describe W/C girls as chavs

Female peer groups - Reay (2001) - asexuality

• Asexual identity key in order to suceed educationally

Female peer groups - Currie et al (2007) - relationships

• Relationships give symbolic capital but are high risk

  • Too competitive - slut

  • Not competitive - frigid

  • Words like this are a device of social control used by girls to regulate each other’s identities

• Boffins excluded by boys and girls

Female peer groups - Ringrose (2013) - tensions between feminine identities

• W/C girls in South Wales saw popularity as crucial to their identity

• Girl’s friendship culture → heteo dating culture

• Tension: idealised fem identity (loyalty) and sexualised identity (competition for boys)

Female peer groups - Archer - symbolic capital

• Symbolic capital gained from hetero fem. identity

  • Tramp if didn’t conform

Teachers and discipline - Askew and Ross (1988) - behaviour of male teachers

• Male teachers behaviour reinforces messages about gender

  • Protective attiudes towards female colleagues

    • ‘Rescuing them’ from disruptve pupils

    • Reinforces idea women can’t cope alone

Teachers and discipline - Heywood and Mac an Ghaill (1996) -- teachers ignoring boy’s behaviour towards girls

• Male teachers told boys off for behaviing like girls

• Boys teased for getting lower marks on a test than a girl

• Teachers ignored boy’s verbal abuse of girls

  • Blamed girls for attacting it