Gendered communities of practice and the construction of masculinities in Turkish physical education

Abstract

This paper analyses the construction of masculinities in Turkish physical education through Carrie Paechter's conceptualisation of gendered communities of practice. According to Paechter, educational communities of practice operate as sites of gendered activity. Membership within these communities contributes to the construction of a gendered identity. We suggest that this model is useful for conceptualising how Turkish young men come to engage with physical education classes which can be considered as masculine communities of practice. In one Turkish secondary class, we found that football was the most valued practice, determining boundaries of participation and differentiating levels of participation in the learning community. Young men who were immersed and excelled in football took up ‘full’ learning trajectories and became accepted as ‘fully masculine’ while those who were uninterested or non‐competitive in football took up marginalised learning trajectories. We suggest that these diverse learning trajectories came to reflect differentiated versions of masculinity.

Keywords:

• post‐structural theory
• social theory
• masculinities
• social class
• sports and PE
• boys
• identities