Heroes or zeroes? The discursive positioning of ‘underachieving boys’ in English neo‐liberal education policy

Abstract

The moral panic concerning ‘boys’ underachievement’ is well established in the UK and Australia, and is spreading to other countries. Feminists have articulated concerns that this debate has reflected a ‘poor boys’ discourse with negative permutations for girls’ schooling; and there is much evidence to support this claim. However, it is argued here that as a result of the location of underachievement in the individual rather than with social structures by neo‐liberal policy movements, in England certain groups of ‘failing’ boys are increasingly being problematized rather than valorized. Boys generally are presented as vulnerable and ‘at risk’. The ‘poor boys’ discourse position these boys as in need of help and attention. But within these practices certain groups of boys are beginning to be demonized for their apparent wastefulness of resources and failure to take responsibility for their own achievement. The article draws on work by Bauman and Foucault as well as feminist theory in order to tease out some of the complex inter‐weavings of gender and neo‐liberal discourses at work in English educational policy.

Notes

1. Certainly, in Britain and elsewhere a great deal of money is being channelled into research, policy strategies and institutional and teaching practices geared at ‘raising boys’ achievement’ (see Francis & Skelton, 2005, for elaboration). And increasingly there is evidence that in some cases this has a negative impact on girls (Warrington et al., 2002; Lucey et al., 2003).

2. The Daily Mail newspaper represents the right wing of the British Press, but its opinion is highly influential with the current Government as the paper is to some extent seen as representing ‘Middle England’ (to whom the Government is keen to appeal).

3. An example of a recent neo‐liberal, free‐market policy in education is the introduction of education ‘academies’ which have some independence from state education policy, and rely on private funding. The Guardian (19 February 2005) reports how a Government commissioned report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers drawing on evidence from US Charter Schools argues that UK policy to introduce independent ‘academies’ will produce a two‐tier system in British education and fail to meet expectations of teaching excellence—but that this report has been ‘covered up’. Instead, The Guardian (22 February 2005) reports that ministers have gone ahead with their ‘controversial plan to replace failing inner‐city schools with independent, privately‐run academies’ despite this evidence.

4. See Walkerdine (2003) and Francis and Skelton (2005) for a discussion of how this ‘flexible self’ is gendered.

5. In our book we discuss the contradictions inherent in the notions of ‘caring masculinity’ and of an ‘authentic’, vulnerable male self hiding beneath the masquerade of ‘macho’ masculinity.

6. Research itself sponsored by the British Government has conclusively shown that other strategies can only by effective in raising boys’ achievement in conjunction with a school ethos and classroom approaches that challenge dominant gender constructions (see Younger et al., 2005). Yet achieving such an ethos is of course difficult, and challenges prevalent social values—as such it seems unlikely to appeal to policy‐makers.