‘I have a sense that it's probably quite bad … but because I don't see it, I don't know’: staff perspectives on ‘lad culture’ in higher education

ABSTRACT

Concerns have been voiced about lad cultures in UK universities for approximately five years. The National Union of Students has been especially vocal in airing concerns, which more recently have been taken up by universities through bodies such as Universities UK. A small amount of work has explored students’ perspectives about, and experiences of, laddism. That research suggests that lad culture is particularly associated with groups of men in social contexts and involves excessive alcohol consumption, rowdy behaviour, sexism, homophobia, sexual harassment and violence. This paper is the first to explore staff perspectives: we draw on data from interviews with 72 staff across 6 universities to explore their perceptions of lad culture, including its prevalence, the contexts in which it occurs and the forms it takes. We argue that perceptions about the prevalence of lad culture are strongly influenced by how it is conceptualised and, relatedly, to whom it is visible.

KEYWORDS:

• Masculinities
• violence
• higher education
• men
• qualitative interviews

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Society for Research into Higher Education.

Notes on contributors

Carolyn Jackson

Carolyn Jackson is Professor of Gender and Education in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University where she is also co-director of the Centre for Social Justice and Wellbeing in Education. She has researched and published on ‘lad cultures’ in secondary schools and higher education, including a monograph, Lads and ladettes in school: Gender and a fear of failure published by Open University Press and a forthcoming book with Vanita Sundaram Understanding ‘lad cultures’ in higher education: A focus on British Universities to be published by Routledge.

Vanita Sundaram

Vanita Sundaram is Professor of Education at the University of York. Her research broadly covers gender and education, focusing more specifically on gender-based violence and teenagers; tackling everyday sexism, harassment and abuse in education across the lifecourse; and lad cultures and sexual violence in higher education. She is the author of numerous publications on these issues, including Global debates and key perspectives on sex and relationships education: Addressing issues of gender, sexuality, plurality and power (2016); Preventing youth violence: Rethinking the role of gender in schools (2014) and the forthcoming Understanding ‘lad cultures’ in higher education: A focus on British universities (with Prof Carolyn Jackson). She is an academic member of the NUS Strategy Team on Lad Culture, an advisory board member of The 1752 Group, and is co-chair of the international Gender and Education Association.