‘Other’ boys: negotiating non‐hegemonic masculinities in the primary school

Abstract

Focusing on the experiences of boys who choose not to cultivate their masculinities through hegemonic discourses and practices, this paper seeks to empirically explore and theorize the extent to which it is possible to live out the category ‘boy’ in non‐hegemonic ways in the primary school setting. Drawing upon a year‐long ethnography of children's constructions of their gender and sexual identities in two primary schools, it examines how a minority of 10‐ and 11‐year‐old white working and middle‐class boys create and seek out spaces from which they can resist, subvert and actively challenge prevailing hegemonic (heterosexual) masculinities within a peer group pupil culture which thrives on the daily policing and shaming of Other1 masculinities. The paper attempts to theorize more fully the inter‐relationship of hegemonic and non‐hegemonic masculinities and argues that the ways in which boys inhabit and construct non‐hegemonic masculinities both subverts and reinforces hegemonic gender/sexual relations.

Notes

* Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT, Wales, UK. Email: [email protected]

Following the writings of bel hooks (e.g., 1990) I am loosely using the term Other to conceptualise those identities located at the margins— those non‐hegemonic identities that are in some ways resistant and order‐transforming (rather than conventional and order‐maintaining) and thus cross and/or blur sex/gender boundaries.

Within this theorisation of gender, greater ‘agency’ and ‘self‐knowledge’ is attributed to the processes of subjectification and the ‘doing’ of gender, which is particularly important given the historical denial of children as active constructors and mediators of their identities and social worlds (James & Prout, 1998).

Seduced by psychoanalytically based theories that identities are constructed through difference (Gallop, 1985; Butler, 1990)— that is, in relation to an Other, it becomes possible to recognise how dominant ‘hegemonic’ identities are constructed through the policing and shaming of Other (non‐hegemonic) identities and thus wholly dependent upon this Other for their existence/dominance.

Later in the paper I differentiate between the notion of Othering (i.e., technologies of exclusion and subordination) as a way of conceptualising the processes by which hegemonic identities are produced and maintained, and the subject position Other (i.e., boys who invest in and desire non‐hegemonic masculinities).

Mindful of the debates and recent re‐thinking around the fluidity and fragility of defining and categorising ‘social class’ (Crompton, 1998) and sensitive to the ways in which cultural, social, material and discursive resources all play a part in the production of advantage (Skeggs, 1997; Reay, 1998), the terms middle‐class and working class are not adopted unproblematically. Rather, they are used primarily as a heuristic device to identify contrasting cultural/socio‐economic backgrounds.

Data was not systematically collected regarding their experiences beyond the school gates, including children's relationships with their families.

For a lengthier discussion of methods and ethical issues related to researching children's sexual/gender cultures and identity constructions in the primary school setting see Renold (2002a).

However, as Butler (1990) and others have cogently argued, intelligible genders are ultimately generated and rely upon ‘abnormal’ genders or Other gender identities for their existence (see note 3).

Although the label ‘geek’ is often used pejoratively to denote a boys' relationship to technology, at both Tipton and Hirstwood ‘geek’ was a generic term of abuse directed at boys who were overtly studious or openly pro‐school. It was a term more commonly used at Tipton Primary, towards two high‐achieving studious boys, Damion and Stuart, who stood out significantly amongst their low–average achieving peers.

I have suggested elsewhere (Renold, 1999) how boys who occupy and invest in Other non‐hegemonic gendered subject positions expose the illusory nature of (hegemonic) masculinity as less than real and are thus subject to Othering practices (which seem to be deployed by boys to re‐establish and re‐secure their version of hegemonic masculinity).

The ‘environmental area’ was a designated and bounded wildlife space that backed on to the concrete playground and grass playing field. It was a space in which children could volunteer to spend their break time planting, weeding, feeding the fish/pond life, etc. It was not, however, popular amongst Year 6 boys (and most girls) who considered it ‘work’ as opposed to ‘play’ (or football which was how the majority of boys spent their break times).

For a fuller account of the ways in which heterosexism and heterosexist harassment and bullying operate as a pedagogy of heterosexuality see Renold (2002b).

I use the term ‘hegemonic boys’ to identify those boys who come the closest to performing a ‘proper’ culturally exalted and socially validated masculinity (in their school/peer group at least).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emma Renold *

* Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT, Wales, UK. Email: [email protected]