‘Playtime in the Borderlands’: Children's Representations of School, Gender and Bullying through Photographs and Interviews

Abstract

Photography has been commonly used as a research tool in studies of childhood/children. However images of school children in official documentation are rarely taken or chosen by children and may not reflect their real experiences. This research considered the photographs taken by year six primary school children of their school and the images they chose to represent themselves. Subsequent interviews with children revealed attitudes to school, the importance of playground relationships in the construction of gender, leading to the concept of ‘borderlands’ inhabited by some boys who adopt non-hegemonic masculinities.

Keywords:

• Photography
• gender
• bullying
• school
• male hegemony

Notes

¹The Department for Education and Skills is the government department in the U.K. that is responsible for education policy including pre-school education, children and young people in schools, adult skills as well as further and higher education.