‘So you can’t blame us then?’: gendered discourses of masculine irresponsibility as biologically determined and peer-pressured in upper-primary school contexts

ABSTRACT

In a global climate increasingly shaped by neoliberal agendas that privilege meritocratic individualism, it is apparent that society as a whole and educational policy-makers and practitioners in particular expect students to take more ‘responsibility’ for their own learning and behaviour at school. In the Australian context, as elsewhere, schools are seen as sites in which students should develop and practise responsibility for self and others in ways that are enterprising, productive, civic-minded, and in accordance with social norms. Yet, few studies have critically examined how the concept of responsibility features in the everyday, taken-for-granted, discursive practices of policy-makers, teachers and students. This paper discusses findings from an ethnographic study concerned with how the discursive constructions of responsibility in three regional Australian primary schools shape upper-primary students’ understandings and experiences of responsibility for self and others. Using the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas and Judith Butler to interpret data, I argue that gendered discourses of biological determinism and peer pressure work to reinforce the misconception that violence and irresponsibility are ‘naturally’ masculine traits.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• discourse
• responsibility
• biological determinism
• peer pressure
• primary school

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Sue Saltmarsh and Amy Chapman for their invaluable feedback and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Currently, the Department of Education.

2. Currently, the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs [MCEECDYA].

3. While a detailed analysis of how responsibility is framed in education policy is not within the scope of this paper, I intend to consider this elsewhere.

4. School and participant names have been changed to pseudonyms.

5. Such issues of gendered researcher positionality will be the focus of another paper.

6. In the Australian context, the term ‘football’ has historically been used in reference to the different forms of rugby rather than soccer.