Part 3: Social Experience of School

Schooling, Normalisation and Gendered Bodies: Adolescentboys’ and girls’ experiences of gender and schooling

Wayne Martino (University of Western Ontario) & MariaPallotta-Chiarolli (Deakin University)

Introduction

Dominant discourses construct boys and girls as twohomogenous groups in need of particular, and uniform kindsof interventions (see Martino et al, 2004; 2005; Jones &Myhill, 2004). The boys and girls themselves, however, tella much more complex story and challenge us to consider verydifferent implications for addressing gender conformity and,more broadly, diversity in schools. In this chapter thevoices of students are used as text to explicate first, howissues of gender, sexuality, social class, ethnicity and thebody are implicated and interweave in girls’ and boys’social experiences of schooling; and second, what theimplications of this might be for addressing diversity inschools (see Connell, 1995; 2002; Martino, 1999, 2000;Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1995; 1998; 2000; 2005). This work drawson and elaborates further our previous published researchthat investigates issues of gender and schooling. It locatessuch research within the broader international context ofstudies conducted into issues of gender and schooling thatdocument student perspectives and voice (see Fine & Weiss,2003; Ferguson, 2001; Renold, 2003; Mac an Ghaill, 1994;Lees, 1993; Ornstein, 1995; Thorne, 1993; Mills, 2001; Hey,1997; Willis,1977; Walker, 1988). The use of student voiceas text is considered within that broader context andhighlights the significance of gender regimes and powerrelations in students’ lives at school (see Martino &Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2005; 2003; 2002; 2001; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1998). We illustrate the extent to which therisky business of “fitting in” involves negotiations aroundnormative and transgressive masculinities and femininities

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and how such practices intersect with sexuality,race/culture, class and geographical location (see James,2003; Kumashiro, 2002).

The context of ‘moral panic’ and the boys’ educationdebates

Through our open-ended questionnaire research, we providedyoung people with the opportunity to identify the issuesthat impact on them at school1. By documenting theirperspectives we believe that educators and policy makers cangain deeper insights into young people’s lives at school. Inthis sense, our research needs to be positioned and locatedas a response to a very specific and intensified context ofmoral panic and debates about underachieving boys and failingmasculinities where the voices of students are not heard(for a critique of the boys’ education debates, see Arnot &Miles, 2005; Epstein et al, 1998; Lingard & Douglas, 1999;Martino & Kehler in press, 2005; Martino, 2004; Collins etal, 2000; Martino & Meyenn, 2001; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998;Mahony, 2003; Weiner et al, 1997; Yates, 1997; Kenway,1995).

In the Australian context, the Federal government has fundeda parliamentary inquiry into boys’ education and continuesto allocate millions of dollars to address the educationalneeds of boys (House of Representatives Standing Committeeon Education and Training, 2002). The inquiry report hasfunctioned to legitimate and authorise a particularknowledge about boys and how they learn. This knowledgerelies on essentialist and biological determinist notions ofgender. For instance, the essential differences between boysand girls are outlined and, the report argues, thesedifferences require gender specific pedagogicalinterventions and approaches to curriculum development.These interventions and approaches are based on problematicassumptions about naturalised gender differences that areapparently located in the sexed brain/body (see Fausto-1

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Sterling, 2000 for a critique of the brain/sex researchliterature). Such an approach leads to advocating single sexclasses/schooling for boys, a boy-friendly curriculum whichinvolves catering for boys’ distinctive learning styles(more structured and quick-paced tasks as well as providingmore activity-based or hands on learning) and more male rolemodels to counteract the “feminising” influences ofschooling.

In both North America and the UK, the increasing“feminisation” of schooling and the curriculum has also beenmarked as causing boys’ underachievement and similarstrategies to the Australian parliamentary inquiry have beenproposed (see Titus, 20004; Weaver-Hightower; 2003; Martino& Kehler, in press, 2005; Kehler & Greig, in press, 2005;Martino, 2004). Arnot & Miles (2005), in fact, argue thatNew Labour’s educational and economic policy in the UK hasled to a (re)masculinisation of schooling along these lineswhich has resulted in a reinstatement andinstitutionalisation of hegemonic masculinity. This, theyadd, has also led to further intensified focus on boys asthe new disadvantaged while masking the inequalities thatcontinue to impact on the lives of certain groups of girls:

... while underachievement is defined as the problemof boys, the production of hierarchicalmasculinities and laddishness by marketised schoolsis ignored. The policy shift towards performativityalso masks girls’ exclusion and the disadvantagesworking-class girls face within the education system(2005: 173).

The authorisation of such knowledges within a rhetoricalframing of boys’ underachievement, which is couched in termsdictated by a neo-liberal ethic (Apple, 2001), deniesknowledge about other groups of boys and girls who aredisadvantaged on the basis of socio-economic status, race,sexuality, geographical location and how these influences

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intersect in the lives of minority students. Moreover, whatis eclipsed is a more nuanced and sophisticated knowledgeabout the social dimensions of schooling and how theseimpact on both boys and girls in very significant ways todetermine the quality of their social interaction andlearning in schools (see Walker, 1988; Mac an Ghaill, 1994;Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2005). In short, within thecontext of the boys’ education debates, what is silenced orerased is important knowledge/research which highlights thesex and gender-based dimensions of harassment andhierarchical masculinities and femininities in boys’ andgirls’ lives at school (see Frank, 1993; Davison, 2000;Duncan, 1999; Alloway, 2000; Epstein, 1997; Nayak & Kehily,1996). A certain body of knowledge about the way boys areand learn to relate gets legitimated within the context of amedia driven moral panic about disadvantaged boys in school(Lingard, 2003; Mills, 2003; Lingard & Douglas, 1999). Thisresults, as Titus argues, in certain beliefs that aregrounded in a biological determinist or essentialist view ofgender ‘becoming authorized as scientific knowledge whileanother is treated with suspicion and disqualified’ (2004:146).

This has arisen in the Australian context, particularly inrelation to the parliamentary inquiry which rejects thesocial construction of gender as a knowledge base formobilising gender reform agendas in schools (see Martino, inpress, 2006). In fact, the report is quite specific in itsdisqualification of such knowledge. This emerges explicitlyin the critique it offers of the Australian EducationUnion’s position on the need to address the socialconstruction of gender as it relates to quality teaching:

The Australian Education Union argued that excellent teaching style ‘is not dictated by gender’ but a range of attitudes and abilities including an ‘understanding of gender construction and its impact on students and teachers’. The Union also argued that effective male teachers ‘need to understand the construction of gender

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and motivations for violence, and be trained in ways to intervene to deal with inappropriate behaviour. Even if this is true it places too much emphasis on gender theory and too little on the importance of the relationship between teacher and the student which is the foundation of good teaching. (2002: 160)

Thus gender theorising and an emphasis on quality teachingget positioned as mutually exclusive practices. This fliesin the face of research literature which points to thevery significant ways in which teacher thresholdknowledges about gender impact on pedagogical practices,perceptions of students and the implementation ofcurriculum in schools (see Skelton, 1998; Francis, 2000;Martino et al, 2004; Martino & Meyenn, 2002; Gilbert &Gilbert, 1998; Bailey, 2002). Jones & Myhill (2004), forexample, highlight the extent to which there was atendency for teachers to cite many of the common genderstereotypes regarding boys’ and girls’ behaviours in theclassroom. This is further foregrounded by Allard (2004)where boys’ misbehaviour tended to be attributed toexternal factors – medical reasons or too much physicalenergy – while girls were constructed by teachers aschoosing to be disruptive. Thus, certain assumptions aboutboys’ and girls’ differential motivations and behavioursare grounded in teacher knowledges that support genderstereotypes and normalisation. The effect of this, asAllard rightly points out, is to foreclose any possibilityof developing a deeper understanding of the investmentsthat young people have in particular versions offemininity and masculinity. Moving beyond such stereotypesinvolves, she suggests, positioning students as agentsthrough providing them with access to other discoursesthat offer more productive and satisfying ways ofthinking about how they might do their gender.

In this sense, Lingard et al (2002) argue for a gender andpedagogical reform agenda in schools that places teacherknowledge at the heart of developing professional learning

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communities in schools (Schulman, 1987). In drawing onNewman (1996) and Darling-Hammond (1995), they advocate anapproach to boys’ education which takes into considerationproductive pedagogies as a framework for gender reform inschools (see also Lingard et al, 2003). Productivepedagogies are characterised by a commitment to developing:

1. an intellectually demanding curriculum;2. a curriculum that is relevant to and has purchase in

the everyday lives of students outside of school;3. a safe classroom environment where students feel safe

to take risks in their learning;4. a celebration and acknowledgement of difference as a

resource for building a deep understanding aboutstudents’ experiences of being in the world.

Such a pedagogical reform agenda requires deep knowledgeabout the range of social and educational issues impactingon students’ lives at school and to the need to buildteacher threshold knowledges about the heterosexualised,racialised and classed dimensions of gender and powerrelations (see Archer & Yamashita, 2003; Renold, 2003;Kumashiro, 2002). Thus, the normalising tendency tohomogenise students on the basis of their gender can beinterrupted. In this chapter, therefore, we highlight howthe influences of gender conformity, sexuality and othersocial factors impacted detrimentally on many boys’ andgirls’ lives at school affecting their emotional,educational, mental health and well-being (see Collins etal, 1996; Collins et al, 2000; Goldflam et at, 1999; McNinch& Cronin, 2004; Dorais, 2004). But we use what studentswrite to identify the issues related to the impact ofschooling, normalisation and gender regimes on their lives.

Theorising gender: developing a conceptual framework formaking sense of boys’ and girls’ lived experience in schools

Our analysis of the students’ responses is informed by the work of Foucault (1982; 1977; 1987) and Butler (1993) who

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highlight the significance of normalising regimes and practices of self-regulation in the production of subjectivity. Hence, the focus in this chapter is on the ways in which boys and girls come to understand and fashion themselves as particular kinds of gendered subjects, while drawing attention to their capacities to defy the categorisations and classifications that are inscribed through certain normalising tendencies and practices that govern peer group regulatory practices. The concern is to foreground the norms governing the practices of ‘othering’ and ‘privileging’ that are enacted by both boys and girls through focusing attention on the performative and self-fashioning practices of corporeal gendered subjectification.As Butler argues, “the boundaries of the body are the lived experience of differentiation, where that differentiation isnever neutral to the question of gender difference or the heterosexual matrix” (1993: 65).

Thus, what is significant are the meanings that are attachedto the heterosexualised body and how it is signifiedaccording to the norms that govern its materialisation andsymbolic significance for boys and girls at school in termsof how they relate to the self and others. In this sense, weare interested in students' understandings of whatconstitutes “normal” or desirable masculinity and femininityand how they learn to fashion and embody such forms ofgendered subjectivity in socially acceptable ways. Hence,attention is drawn to how particular power relations areplayed out in students’ lives at school in relation to theperformative dimensions of masculinities and femininitiesand how they intersect with sexuality, race/culture, classand ethnicity.

This idea of performativity is also informed by Foucault’sinsights into the self-fashioning techniques andunderstandings of power involved in the production of theformation of identity or subjectivity (see Foucault, 1978;1980; 1982). Foucault is careful to situate this focus on'how the subject constitute[s] himself [sic]' within a field

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or game of truth/power relations. The formation ofsubjectivity or identity is understood in terms of thecultural techniques for working on and fashioning thegendered self, which are made available within existingregimes of practice. In this chapter, we investigate whatFoucault (1978) terms 'polymorphous techniques of power' inrelation to examining the self-fashioning practices ofmasculinity and femininity in various boys' and girls livesat schools across a range of locations in the Australiancontext.

Some methodological issues

We draw on student responses to a survey distributed to over1000 students in Australian schools aged 15-16 years of age(see Note 1). There is a conscious attempt to avoidpositioning ourselves as occupying some objective or neutralposition as researchers who merely listen to and read whatstudents have to say about their lives at schools, as iftheir texts somehow give us some unmediated access to their‘truths’ (see Lather, 1991; Britzman, 1995; Scheurich,1995). However, at the same time, we are wary ofappropriating student voice and simply using their texts asmouth-pieces for our own political purposes. As Trinhstates:

... no need to hear your voice when Ican talk about you better than you canspeak about yourself...I want to knowyour story. And then I will tell it backto you in a new way. Tell it back to youin such a way that it has become mine,my own, my re-writing you. … I am stillauthor, authority. I am still colonizer,the speaking subject and you are now atthe center of my talk (1990: 343).

In this sense we bring to our research both a politics thatis motivated in response to a New Right agenda that has

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infiltrated the boys’ education agenda in the Australiancontext (as well as in the UK and North America) and acommitment to providing students with the opportunity tospeak their ‘hearts and minds’ (see Martino & Berrill, 2003;Pallotta-Chiarolli,1998; 2005; Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli,2001). Within the context of the public debates about boys’education, the students’ perspectives have been remarkablyabsent. This has led to adult-centric constructions of youththat have resulted in the proliferation of generalisableclaims about the nature of boys’ and girls’ learning stylesand experiences of schooling. Thus, by asking students towrite about what school is like for them, spaces can becreated for producing a certain knowledge that is committedto documenting their construction of reality (see alsoCushman, 2003; Fine & Weis, 2003). At the same time it alsoenables us to use their voices to challenge the ‘commonsense’ claims that resort to reinforcing essentialiseddifferences between the sexes at this particular historicalpoint in time (see Petersen, 1998; Fausto-Sterling, 2000).

Themes

Six themes emerged in our reading of the data that epitomizethe struggle many students experienced in grappling withhierarchical power, both in terms of their relationshipswith teachers and with their peers:

1. students’ critical interrogation of schooling in termsof institutionalized power embodied and exercised byteachers ;

2. the impact of hierarchies or pecking orders ofmasculinity and femininity on the lives of both girlsand boys at school;

3. the very significant ways in which sexuality and gendercontinue to impact detrimentally on girls’ lives atschool;

4. the significance and intensification of gender basedharassment;

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5. the significance of racialised othering in visibleminority students’ lives;

6. many students’ awareness of and attempts toproblematise the effects of gender and other influencesin their lives at school.

Students’ critical interrogation of schooling: rejectinghierarchical and impositional authority

Both girls and boys across all surveyed schools were verycritical of hierarchical and institutional power embodied byteachers and principals. The following boys’ responsescapture the sentiments of many students we surveyed:

Teachers reckon they deserve respect without earningit. Good teachers are hard to come by - most of themare ‘fuckheads’ … They make up their own rules,constantly put students down, dish out punishments ifthey're having a bad day. (SSBS M 1/16)

School sucks and I think the teachers are upthemselves and power freaks ... Boys have to put upwith macho dickhead teachers who think they rule theschool. (CCHS M 40/16)

The school that I’m at was once a good school with nouniform, no 6 foot high fence with 4 rings of barbedwire around it which basically turned the school intoa prison. When you go past the school you would thinkthat it was a Detention Centre. ... Most of theteachers in the school try to play God with you. Allthe teachers have walkie talkies! What next? (GHS M268/16)

Girls expressed similar views about school and teachers,often drawing attention to their uses and abuses of power.This is very interesting in light of the literature whichhas tended to highlight boys’ resistance to schooling andinstitutional authority in schools that is often manifested

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as a form of ‘protest masculinity’ (see Willis, 1977;Walker, 1988; Connell, 1989). Francis (2000) also exploredstudents’ perceptions of boys’ laddish behaviour in schoolwhich, she claims, often rests on a narrative about femalepassivity and male activity as binary oppositional genderedbehaviours (see also Jones & Myhill, 2004; Allard, 2004).However, she indicates that “the classroom observation didsuggest that boys tended to be louder and more demandingthan girls and use more physical forms of resistance in theclassroom” (2000: 115). Our research tends to support thiswith regards to the issue of student resistance to teachersand school based power structures. We contend that thegirls’ rejection and critical appraisal of schooling,documented below, may be articulated in more tacit ways atschool and not necessarily through the overt bodilyenactment of disrupting classes and ‘mucking around’ thatcharacterises boys’ performance of protest masculinities(see Martino, 2001; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998).

School for me is a pain in the butt. I hate it. Itcan be fun sometimes but most of the time it’s abunch of loser teachers pushing you around becausethey like the power. (GHS F 92/15)

School sucks. I hate it. I hate the rules. I hateteachers. They think they are such higher people thanus. We are treated like children when in actual factwe are young adults. (CCHS F 99/16)

Both boys and girls also commented on what they consideredto be petty schools rules and regulations designed tocontrol and constrain their behavior and expression ofidentity. In this sense, school was often constructed as anunnecessary imposition of power and control which had verylittle to do with creating the conditions for effectivelearning:.

I hate the rules especially. I mean how does thenumber of earrings in your ears or whether or not you

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wear nail polish really affect yourschoolwork/performance? (CCHS F 111 / 15)

There is no freedom and of course if we have strictregulations, we ARE going to rebel. They should beworrying about the drug problems and other harmfulsituations rather than worrying about if our hair istied up or not. (CCHS M 94/14)

X is a single sex college. There are very strictregulations. Classes are very formal and everything'is done by the book'. The college has a richtradition which has set the standard for certainactivities in the school ... More responsibilityshould be placed in the hands of the boys, allowingthem to develop leadership and people skills ...Tradition plays an important role in the uniformwhich is very uncomfortable. Long knee-high socks area thing of the past. Get rid of them! (SSBS M 19/16)

These responses are consistent with what Ancess writes aboutcreating communities of commitment in schools that are builtaround a ‘common ethos and vision, caring and caregiving ...and a striving for ‘mutual accountability among allcommunity members’ (2003: 9). The building blocks forcreating such school cultures and communities, she argues,are ‘trusting, horizontal relations, not formal externallyimposed regulations and hierarchies’ (2003: 3). Developingsuch communities also means that certain conditions forcommunication need to be created and nurtured, which requirea commitment to involving students in the school’s decision-making processes. Moreover, Ancess stipulates that suchforms of communication mean ‘individuals are in the habit ofgiving rise to their voice, expressing their ideas’ (2003:4).

Martin (2002) also writes about school-based reform inrelation to involving students in the decision-makingprocesses alongside supporting them to be autonomous

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learners who are able to take responsibility for theiractions/learning. He claims that improving the quality ofschool life for both boys and girls at school needs toinvolve:

Assisting teachers in dealing with diversity, promotingactive learning, developing students’ higher orderthinking, creating effective learning zones, providingeffective feedback to students, developing goodrelationships with students, engaging in productivepedagogy, listening to and valuing student perspectives(2002:37)

He also states that students value school more when ‘theysee its relevance to them and to the world more generally’(2002:37). This is consistent with the productive pedagogiesmodel of leadership and effective schooling with itsemphasis on teacher threshold knowledges (see Lingard et al,2003). Many students, however, reiterate that the focus intheir schools appears to be on enforcing petty school rulesas opposed to a commitment to creating the conditions foractive listening, effective learning and productiveschooling.

Hierarchies of masculinities and femininities: the impact ofgender and sexuality on students’ social relations

The pecking order of peer social networks also loomed largein students’ narratives about the impact and effects ofschooling on their daily lives. There were particulargendered and heterosexualised dimensions to thesehierarchical social relations (see also Chambers et al,2004), as detailed by the following students:

Being a girl at school is very hard. Girls are theworst for social acceptance. To be in ‘the populargroup” you have to be very social, good looking, wearname brands and the “in” clothes, be able to dobasically whatever you want, i.e., go to parties,

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stay out late, etc. Girls are also very bitchy andnasty. If you get on the wrong side of someone (agirl) they can and do make your life miserable andeven destroy your life by mentally breaking you down.… The problems I experience at school are socialacceptance. I am in the ‘popular’ group at schooland have to meet high expectations to stay in thatgroup. (GHS F 115/15)

As a boy I feel there is more pressure placed on youby other members of the same sex to conform to theirideas and if you don't you shall be harassed bothphysically and mentally. I experience problems but sodoes everyone else. Even those who make otherpeople's problems – i.e. bullies, because they feelthey need to prove themselves. (CCHS M 34/15)

One of the other major issues is to be cool and machoin a world where those who play sport and are strongare supreme and those skinny, "four-eyed nerds" arethe 'underworld rats'. (SSBS M 3/16)

Only ‘hot’ girls will be invited to a party. I cansee some of my friends seriously affected by this. …One other problem I see at school is friends who needto smoke/drink to be cool. (SSGS 123/16)

For both boys and girls ‘fitting in’ and acquiring socialstatus were central to establishing a position at the top ofthe hierarchy or pecking order of masculinities andfemininities. This was often related to ‘acting cool’, asoutlined by the above students and involved wearing theright clothes and having a social life outside of school.That entailed being desirable to the opposite sex, going toparties and an investment in projecting a particular imagethrough either transgressing traditional femininity orconforming to normative masculinity as dictated by thelimits of the heterosexual matrix. Both boys and girls writeabout the pressure involved in maintaining such a ‘cool’

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status, which often involved self- regulation and thepolicing of gendered identities through practices oflabelling and ‘othering’. These social practices, as willbe illustrated further in the following sections, wereimbricated in hierarchical power relationships and wereoften at the heart of sex and gender based harassmentexperienced by many students in the schools where weconducted our research.

a) Masculinities and boys’ social relations

I don't experience many problems at school. I just stick to what everyone else does, try not and stand out. That way you can't be criticized or hassled. (CCHSM 5/14)

Many boys wrote about the impact and effects of hierarchicalmasculinities at school. Those boys who conformed tonormative or traditional masculinity, for example, wereoften perceived to be ‘cool’, while those who transgressednormative masculinity were policed through discourses of‘othering’ and derision:

At a boys’ school, athletic ability and strength playsa large role in how many mates and how popular youare. So if you’re fat and a spastic you’re doomed toeternal rejection. (SSBS M 2/16)

Being a boy means that if you don't act macho you getgiven crap. Boys don't really have any ways to dealwith problems because there is no outlet for emotionsand no one to talk to about issues. I get depressed alot and the only way to stop it is to get really angrywhich means I tend to offend other people a lot and bereally mean to them. I can't really talk aboutproblems and feel trapped a lot. (CCHS M 3/14)

CCHS 3's response is significant in that he associates‘acting macho’ and, hence, the regime of gender based

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policing and harassment, with not being able to deal withhis emotions. He seems to be highlighting the need foremotional support, the lack of which is linked for him todepression and associated practices of enforcednormalisation through peer regulation of genderedheterosexualised identities (Chambers et al, 2004; Renold,2003). SSBS 2 also highlights the role of sport and the bodyas a social practice through which many boys learn tovalidate their masculinities and to gain the status of being'tough' or 'cool' through enforcing a distinction from thosesubordinated boys considered to be inferior.

Another student also highlights how boys undertake a kind ofsurveillance of their peers’ masculinity, which involves afocus on the body, with particular attention being devotedto physical strength, penis size and body weight:

An issue that boys have to deal with a lot is howstrong they are. Often boys will just start pushingeach other for no reason and if you show that you arehurt by what they have done then they will keep ondoing it to you until you do something back to them.Also, if a boy looks weak but is actually strong butpeople don't know he is strong then they will call himlanky, weak, faggot and other abusive names. Also, ifpeople hide in the change rooms to get changed andpeople begin to notice it then that person is calledPin Dick or is given crap if they are fat then peoplestart talking about them having big tits and a fat ass(CCHS M 54/15).

The following boy mentions that teachers do not appear to beaware of the effects of such regulatory peer group practicesof conformist masculinity and of how they impact on thelives of students at school, particularly those boys who arepositioned as transgressive and ‘other’:

Boys have to stand up for themselves and their friendsto the people who feel they are cool…. Boys have to

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make themselves look either big or insignificant toavoid bullying and pressure. However, if people sticktogether then they are less likely to be the onespressured. As this is an easy solution, groups beginto form in the school, which either help each otherout or go in search of someone else to attack. Half ofthe teachers have no idea of what's going on andnothing is done about it (CCHS M 45/14).

For many of the boys there was a powerful awareness andinsight into the policing of masculinities throughhomophobia (see Martino, 2000; Chambers et al, 2004;Epstein, 1997; Nayak & Kehily, 1996; Mac an Ghaill, 1994;Plummer,1999; Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2003). Thefollowing boy, for example, explicitly highlight the impactof compulsory heterosexuality on their lives and draw furtherattention to the inextricable gendered and sex baseddimensions of harassment (see also McNinch & Cronin, 2004;Dorais, 2004):

School can be a hassle to go to ... Being a boy isjust normal apart from not wanting to act or looklike a faggot. You don't want to get crap from anyone... Issues are not wanting to be the target of agroup who continually gives you crap. There aren'tany other issues I know of unless you do somethinglike cry or act gay, that can give you a reputationyou can't live down. (CCHS M 1/15)

What issues do boys have to face ... not looking likea fairy ... No matter how hard you try and how mucheffort you put in you always end up back at thebottom.... to fit in is the hardest thing of all.(CCHS M 24/16)

Some boys also mention the increasing pressure placed onboys to have sex with girls:

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Girls are an interesting factor at school. Being a‘handsome’ young man I pull chicks pretty easy. Somefind it hard though, and are subjected to being called‘fags’ simply because they are not as confident asothers. Also, there has become increasing pressure todo more with a girl. For instance, ‘kissing’ is simplynot enough, one is now expected at least to ‘go down’or receive oral. Some are pressured into this whenreally they are not old enough or experienced in suchsexual acts. (SSBS M 4/16)

What is emphasised once again is the effects of certainnormalising tendencies that are built into how boys areexpected to behave at school and the role of the peer groupin these social practices of masculinity (see Kehily &Nayak, 1997; Martino & Meyenn, 2001). As well as an emphasison proving one’s self through competitive sport and pressureto ‘do drugs’ which appear to be requirements forsuccessfully displaying proper masculinity, for many boys‘acting cool’ is inevitably linked to regimes of compulsoryheterosexuality (Rich, 1980) where failure to ‘pull chicks’runs the risk of being subjected to homophobic harassment,thus highlighting the need many boys felt in our study of‘not wanting to act or look like a faggot’. In fact Chambers et al intheir research found that peer regulation of boys’ sexualidentities often involved homophobia and misogyny as a meansby which to police dominant heterosexual masculinity andthat this ‘cut across class and ethnic differences’ (2004:411; see also Martino, 1999; Martino & Pallotta-Chiarolli,2003). Moreover, they identify verbal sexual harassmentused by boys to assert such versions of heterosexualmasculinity with girls reporting that boys would ask them to‘give head’ or a ‘shag’ as they passed one another in thecorridors at school. This assertion of heterosexualmasculinity also involved intensified policing of otherboys, which is captured by the following boy through his useof the metaphor of a sniffer dog:

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I get the occasional snigger, tease ‘faggot, gay etc’because I'm real expressive and very in touch with myfeminine side. I'm not gay, but I have three sisters,and I can relate and understand them very well. I'mvery sensitive too, and at school guys can be likedogs and sniff you out fast. If you stuff up in thesense of wearing the wrong shoes, clothes, friends,you can cop a whole heap of shit, but the action ofthose guys are out of fear of not conforming to thepathetic egoistic standards. Being a guy that isn'tpopular, if you don't fit in, then you're immediatelylabelled. What you usually find [is] that the way toharass a guy’s dignity is to affect his sexuality.Common issues of insults could be ‘faggot, gay, homo,sped [special education], etc’ really insultingnames. For guys it's also an ego thing. Who's themost heroic, bravest, who can pick up the best chick,who can cop a root or a bit ... first? The peerpressure is pretty strong. You will find that all ofthe guys are very afraid. You can get the strongestlooking guy, but he's still afraid. Guys think thatthey have to fit in. I do, sometimes, but I guess I'mrealising that it's not worth it, and plus I think,why would I want to be like them. (CCHS M 2/15).

One student also explicitly draws attention to the classeddimension of hierarchical peer group relations ofmasculinity amongst the boys attending the private singlesex school:

Being in a private school there are many yuppy wankerswho think they are hot shit! However in a schoolcommunity, where only top blokes are accepted, mostpeople are frowned upon because of their rich shelteredlives and the immature ways in which they socialize.Social outcasts (anyone who is not accepted by yourgroup) keep out of the way in fear of being harassed! Avery real pecking order is in place and to maintainrespect people have to apply authority. (SSBS M 12/17)

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Many of the boys in our research demonstrated the capacityto interrogate and interrupt hegemonic practices ofmasculinity. In fact, their critical commentaries highlightthe extent to which practices of masculinity are governed byspecific norms around negotiating and exercising power.Documenting these students’ perspectives contributes tobuilding a deep knowledge about masculinities that movesbeyond essentialised conceptions of boys’ behaviour asgrounded in brain/sex/hormonal differences. The way thatboys behave is not ‘natural’ and somehow outside of theinfluences of culture and historically specific social normsfor understanding what is to count as acceptable expressionsor definitions of masculinity (Connell, 1995; Petersen,2000).

b) Femininities and girls’ social relations Hierarchical power relations involving the policing offemininities and sexual identity also featured assignificant in girls’ peer group relations and impacted onthe quality of their lives at school (see Less, 1993; Hey,1997; Reay, 2001). Many of the girls tended to differentiatebetween traditional or normative femininity, based on sexualpassivity and being a good girl, which was considered to be‘uncool’ or ‘loserish’, and transgressive femininity, whichinvolved being sexually assertive and engaging in risk-taking behaviours. However, girls reiterated that a certainbody image and appearance were prerequisites for acquiringthe social status of ‘being cool’ or popular which waspoliced by both other girls and the surveillance of boys. Itneeds to be stressed that despite one’s positioning withinthe social hierarchy of femininities, the self-policingpractices of the body with regards to appearance, weight,and image were implicated in most girls’ lives, regardlessof whether they subscribed to or performed traditionaland/or transgressive femininities in schools:

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Girls are expected to look pretty, be thin and have alarge chest. (GHS F 51/ 14)

Girls are very sensitive about what others think oftheir weight. Some go anorexic over the issues ofbeing told they’re fat by peers. (CCHS F 90/14)

Thus, it appears that whether girls are classified and self-define as ‘nice girl’ or ‘bad girl’, ‘frigid or slut’, theissues of body image and appearance impacted upon all girls.

Similarly, hierarchies and classifications related to bodyimage and sexual expression for girls who subscribed toeither traditional or transgressive femininities appear tobe determined by boys or were linked to normativemasculinity. As one girl in our research said, ‘boys have amajor role in determining the social status of a girl’.

Being a girl in a school I guess is harder than being aboy because we have to be pretty and right to fit in. Ithink guys have the macho thing going on, so that’s what they might find is hard, but girls have to be skinny and always look good. The things I have problemswith at school is trying not to care when guys don’t pay attention to me and focusing on school work which is more important. My friend is really gorgeous and it’s hard having to see her get all the attention. (CCHS F 181 / 16)

For girls, the body, appearance and sexuality emerged asmajor concerns in their lives, indicating the extent towhich they had internalised an idealized image of embodiedfemininity. Thus, these girls highlight how being pretty andslim carries a particular social currency that confers astatus femininity.

Girls are rewarded for conforming to this so-called‘successful’ traditional femininity by being positioned assexually desirable by boys:

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The popular girls are often looked up to becausethey're gorgeous and they have the gorgeous boyfriends.(GHSV F 104/16)

Everybody tries to be the most popular and mostbeautiful and all the girls try to look good, loseweight (many girls diet) just so the boys like themand don’t talk about them! Boys use the girls and makebets. Boys don’t care about girls’ personalities onlythe body and looks – and how loose they are. Girls goto school to impress boys. (CCHS F 173/15)

The issue of body image was often seen to be connected tothe broader issues of gaining social acceptance andresponding to the surveillance of girls by boys:

The pressures for girls to be pretty and slim is a bigissue as girls fear what boys say about them behindtheir backs … Boys tend to be insincere to girls, asthey like them for their looks and how far they’ll gowith them, but not caring about what’s inside. (CCHS F174 / 15)

Appearance is one of the major factors as prettiergirls or the ones that boys consider worthy to go outwith tend to be the ‘popular’ ones. Nowadays boys havea major role in determining the social status of agirl. A girl a guy considers ugly would immediately belabelled ‘unpopular’. (CCHS F 120/15)

Thus body image and appearance, as determined by the normsgoverning desirable femininity, played a major role indetermining a girl’s position within the social hierarchy ofpeer group relations at school:

Girls have to keep their image up. If your skirt istoo long, you get pity, which is absolutely stupid.If you're not very good looking, you get disdain. If

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you're a ‘popular’ person, chances are you have to bea stereotypical superficial blonde bimbo … I myselfam not a ‘popular’ person by definition, meaning Idon't hang with the huge either-clever-or-reallystupid, doing drugs, wild party-animal, shits-everyone-else crowd, and I am so happy about that,not because I'm bitter (about this issue anyway), butbecause I love my friends and I couldn't stand beingaround the majority of these people anyway which isnot to say that guys haven't any issues orinsecurities, but girls are pressured a lot aboutimage. If you're overweight, you're insecure and youberate yourself everyday. If you're underweight, youworry about what other people think about your skinnyarms etc. If you're too tall or short or hardworkingor unattractive etc, it seems worse because of theother 200 people you see every day judging you onyour appearance. Granted only a fraction of thatamount actually think that way, but it still feelslike it, and self-esteem is hard to gain in highschool. (CCHS F 88/15)

While the boys tended to highlight the homophobic dimensionsof hierarchical power, the girls wrote about the policing oftheir sexuality by other boys in terms of the madonna/whorebinary:

Being a girl is pretty hard cause you always lookgreat to impress the guy or you get called a ‘dirtyscrag’ or you can be called a slut for having sexwith a guy even if he was your boyfriend etc. (RGHS F20/16)

I am a girl at a Government Co-Ed school and I have alot of male friends. Immediately I am classed as aslut and this makes it hard for me to make friendsbecause of this name. … People look at me weird andit makes me uneasy at school. Guys think, “Slut ..I'll get lucky tonight” so they immediately come to

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me. It's hard to deal with this because everyonefinds out and hassles me at school. The hard thingfor me to understand is that when girls have sex theyare called a ‘slut', but when guys have sex everyonethinks they are a hero. This is wrong and it hurts meto think that the world is coming to this conclusion.(RGHS F 21/16)

These perspectives are consistent with that presented byLees who argues that:

Girls walk a narrow line: they must not be seen astoo tight, nor as too loose. Girls are preoccupied intheir talk with sexuality, and in particular with theinjustice of the way they are treated by boys.Defining girls in terms of sexuality rather thantheir attributes and potentialities is a crucialmechanism of ensuring their subordination to boys(1993 :29).

This is confirmed by what the following girl has to sayabout boys at school:

In my year especially, the boys are very persuasivewhen it comes to girls. They ALWAYS have the upperhand and congregate in groups to intimidate. Girlsthen feel they have to live up to the expectationsand standards of the ‘guys’ and become fake. Theirpersonality isn’t their real personality and they doanything only for a guy’s approval. Personally I findit PATHETIC! And I let them know it ... Girls liveup to the expectation of the ‘boys group’. It’s allabout doing something only if it’s cool and theothers will approve of it and condone it. That’s allthat seems to matter! .... I also get sick of howguys talk about girls in sexual ways and judge theirpersonality on their bra size! It’s demeaning and itaffects girls. They will do anything a guy says, just

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so they won’t be thought of as a ‘tight-ass’. That’swhat school life to me involves! (CCHS F 112 /15)

The point made by CCHS 112 regarding boys’ power tointimidate is also important because it relates to how boysestablish certain power bases in peer group situations andthen use this power in intimidatory ways to police girls’sexuality and femininities. The following girl actuallyhighlight how boys’ harassment of girls is linked toasserting their superiority, which is linked to fashioning acool masculinity in peer group situations:

Most guys give the girls crap about how we as girlslook because it’s ‘cool’, it’s ‘fun’ and it impressestheir mates. If you were to be locked away with themin a room, they would be the sweetest, kindest person(creature?) you could ever have come across and Ithink it’s really dumb (pathetic?) how they have touse these masks to keep their ‘supreme’ title andcarry it out till the end…(CCHS F 96 / 15)

Many girls drew our attention to how the popular boys arethe ones who do the teasing and suggests that this is ameans of subordinating those girls who do not measure up totheir standards of acceptable femininity. Furthermore, whatis highlighted by such a response is that boys’ harassingbehaviours are a means by which they are able to establishand maintain their powerful position at the top of thesocial ladder of peer group relations at school consistingof a pecking order of masculinities and femininities. Infact, many girls talked about how boys teased and ridiculedthem on the basis of their appearance, which was once againseen as linked to boys asserting masculine power throughsexist practices of denigrating girls:

Most of the boys at our school think they aresuperior to everyone else and they think they canhave fixed images of what girls should look like andif you don’t fit this image, then you get called

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moles and picked on for any physical appearance thatis different. I think they are doing this tocompensate for not being Gods themselves. The issuesboys have to deal with are feeling they have to fita certain image and if they don’t they will bepicked on. (CCHS F 159/15)

This denigration and policing of girls’ femininities by boysalso involved homophobic harassment, with the latter oftenlabelling certain girls ‘lesbian’:

If you are a girl and have a lot of female friends,the guys will call you a lesbian. (CCHS F 92 / 15)

I am one of those eccentric people. I am anindividual apparently. I dress how I feel and do muchthe same. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t bully and I amnot a trouble maker in class, but somehow I threatenpeople, mainly guys. I get teased because I dressweird... I am teased because although I have my ownself-confidence to do what I feel, I am still shyaround people. I am also in all extended (smart)classes at school except one of which I am literallytop of the class. That threatens them too. And I havefriends that are also considered weird. They are myclose group of friends. I get ‘lesbian’ a LOT. I amnot but I do have 2 friends that are, and what’s thebig deal! ... The teasing is not stupid sing songrhymes or anything it’s embarrassing questions askedloudly around a big group of people which made me shyand uncomfortable. ‘Are you and your sisterlesbians?’ What’s that? I don’t ask them if theysleep with their sister let alone sibling of the samesex – how rude is that? (CCHS F 98/15)

The shit the guys used to hang on me in my youngeryears made being an outgoing and kind of out therechick fucking suck! I used to get called ‘the dykethat lost her bike’. It wasn't any of their business

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if I was a lesbian or not (though I'm not), but youknow how boys are ... I got away from the shit andmy marks picked up. (GHSV F 211/16)

In Year 9 I got teased HEAPS and I was called alesbian. Only heavily teased girls in our grade getstuff like that spread about them. I guess I gotpicked – lucky me! (CCHS F 119/15)

This girl’s comment that ‘only heavily teased girls’ arecalled lesbians highlights how, according to the dictates ofcompulsory heterosexuality governing these boys’ behaviours,to be considered or labelled a lesbian is to position a girlat the lowest rung of the social ladder. Boys deploy thisform of homophobia, not only against marginalised boys toensure their subordinated status, but also against thosegirls who threaten to defy normative constructs offemininity.

The significance of gender based harassment

Many female students repeatedly identified ‘bitchiness’ as amajor problem in their lives at school. They talked atlength about the social pressures that resulted from‘bitchiness’ as a specific form of gender-based harassmentamongst girls used to maintain and establish certain powerrelations (see Lees, 1993; Hey, 1997; Pallotta-Chiarolli,1998; Tanenbaum, 2002). The following girl, for example,highlights how bitchiness often occurs because of jealousyor rivalry in relation to boys:

Through bitchiness I have lost friends. (Otherfemales or ex-friends have started trouble for me). …I have tried not to let the bitchiness bring mygrades down but unfortunately for me my parents,teachers and I have all noticed that my grades havedropped and we all know that this has been caused bystress. I am in high classes but since I started toget hassled I have been dropped down two classes ...I

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am hoping that soon the troublemakers will realizethat they have made me suffer and hopefully theywill realize that they had enough fun and are nowbored with hasseling me (hopefully). (RGHS F 28/14)

In fact, many students distinguished between boys’ tendencyto resort to physical fighting and girls’ tendency to‘bitch’ as means of dealing with conflict:

Boys get in fights and get called gay but girls getin bitch fights all the time and heaps of gossip goesaround everyday and girls get reputations as sluts,bitches that can stay with them until they leaveschool. (Girl CCHS 97 / 14)

Most girls don’t bully other girls to their facesunless they are in a fight with that person. Boys, onthe other hand, tend to bully each other constantlyabout the way they look etc. They are more open withtheir bullying and don’t talk about people behindtheir back as much as girls do …There is not really away to stop bullying because, wherever kids are,there are people of different races, weights andlooks and so you always get a few people who will goout of their way to make those who are ‘different’feel uncomfortable and unloved. (CCHS F 100/15)

CCHS 136 below draws attention to the norms of appearanceand bodily comportment which appear to drive the bitchingamongst girls, while boys, who are also capable of suchbehaviour, are constructed as dealing with it in morephysically aggressive ways. Her comment that boys tend toprovoke ‘bitch fights’ amongst girls, while the latterignore boys’ physical fights, suggests that boys derive asense of pleasure and power from inciting girls to engage insuch practices but the reverse is not held to be true.Furthermore, she sees the whole issue of bullying as aninevitable part of school life and as the only way to solvethe problems that arise. This resonates with many students’

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assertions that bullying or teasing was a ‘normal’ or anexpected part of school life:

School for me, being a girl, is difficult concerningbitchiness and fitting in. … Girls generally are verybitchy. They have set standards of what and how weshould act and dress. This for some people it is hardas we all aren’t as fortunate as others. Boys also atthis school are just as bitchy as the girls but seemto handle it in different ways. They act physically,whereas girls just bitch and call names …When boys seegirls having a bitch fight they find it pathetic butthey also try to provoke it. But when boys havefights, girls see it as pathetic and don’t see thepoint of it. In conclusion, I believe that most peopleprobably see school life in the same way as I do - awhole lot of problems that can only be solved byfighting. (CCHS F 136/16)

And this is what another girl had to say about power, socialhierarchies, competition and bitchiness amongst girls:

It’s like a silent war. Which group knows betterguys? Which group goes to more parties? It can bereally stressful sometimes. Eventually thecompetition turns into hostility …You just feel shitbecause you never wanted anyone to hate you, in factthe complete opposite (SSGS F 119/15).

Thus bitchiness featured as a significant form of harassmentin girls’ lives and is linked to issues of ‘coolness’,popularity and competition amongst girls and often inrelation to boys (see Duncan, 2004).

I get left out a lot by my friends. Although I sit ina group, no-one really talks to me … During class,when it’s one on one with my friends, they are reallynice and we talk for ages about everything you canpossibly think of, but when we get back to the rest of

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the group they walk off, ignore me and talk aboutpeople I don’t know or things they have done withoutme. I feel sad about being left out. If you don’t haveconnections and don’t work to act ‘cool’ no-one reallywants to talk to you or know you … bitching andgossiping are the worst things in the world to have todeal with. (SSGS F 46/14)

Girls also used the terms ‘bitch Barbies’ to define thosewho deliberately harass other girls based on their supposedsuperiority due to combinations of wealth, body image,Anglo-Australian backgrounds, and popularity with boys:

Girls worry more about physical appearance eg beingfat, having the right shoes, hair, etc. If you do onething wrong you’ll end up getting backstabbed andthen become a LOSER! (GHSV F 118/16)

The behaviour and practices of the popular girls whopositioned themselves and were positioned at the top of thesocial hierarchy with the ‘cool’ boys were rejected by manystudents. The following person refers to these girls as the‘Britney spears’ clones’:

I’m proud to be a geek, free from petty bitchingabout boys and clothes. … sometimes the BritneySpears clones really piss me off. (SSGS F 32/15)

Such an ascription, like the labels ‘bitch barbies’ and ‘theplastics’, functions as a means of retaliatory resistanceagainst the commodification and marketisation of certainversions of femininity that are actively appropriated by the‘cool’ girls. Such rejection of hierarchical power andcultural capital accrued by the popular transgressive girlsis also actively repudiated by the following girl:

Girls have to deal with growing up in front ofeveryone and have a lot of pressure to ‘fit in’ withother girls. A lot of boys have to deal with peer

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pressure and to face a lot of bullies and be a partof fights. It is more common for girls to be given a‘bad’ name and to have rumours spread about them thanboys. You have problems throughout high school withgirls that think they’re better than you and can pushyou around but you end up realising that you’re thebetter person because they dropped out of school atYear 10 to work full time at [fast food takeaway].(GHS F 114/15)

These ‘sensible’ girls (Hey et al., 2001), however, appearto be distancing themselves from both the ‘immaturity’ ofthe boys and the destructive ‘bitchiness’ of the girls infavour of investing in academic success at school, whichthey see as affording them greater post-school opportunities(see Francis, 2000).

Listening to such voices produces a counter hegemonicdiscourse in their capacity to offer perspectives onschooling which draw attention to the impact and effects ofthe policing and surveillance of femininities andmasculinities in boys’ and girls’ lives that are eclipsed bythe master narrative governing the moral panic surroundingboys as the ‘new disadvantaged’. In short, the words ofboys and girls present a much more dynamic picture of the‘complex messiness of gender relations’ (Reay, 2001: 164).This is further complicated when taking into account theperspectives of visible minority groups.

Racialized othering

Racial discrimination was also mentioned by both girls andboys as a problem impacting on their lives at school. AChilian girl attending the rural school mentioned how herdarker skin had led her to be targeted for racist abuse onthe basis that it was a signifier of Aboriginality:

At school you may be treated different because youare weaker or because you look different. When I was

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in primary school I used to be bullied by older kidsbecause I was darker than them. I was called ABCAboriginal Bum Cleaner but I am not Aboriginal. (RGHSF 22/14)

A Fijian/Scottish girl also recounts a horrific story ofracial and physical abuse at the hands of a boy when shefirst started school:

Around 10 years ago I started school. Everything uptill then was good. I don't have good memories ofstarting off. All I can remember was me as a sacredlittle girl who thought school was like a prison andI was uncomfortable. In year 1 I had problems with aboy who was in year 6. He used to hit me and smack myhead against bins because of my racial background,because I have a black mother. This was about thetime I didn't trust anyone. I wondered why kids couldbe so cruel. Why they looked at skin colour and theycouldn't look beyond it. (RGHS F 27/16)

Students from Asian backgrounds also mentioned racistbehaviour directed toward them at school:

Racial problems are the most which influence me ...This school has many problems ... especially Asianstend to face the most problems. Many in this schoolare RACIST against Asians. (CCHS M 33/17 Japanese)

Well problems that I experience at school are allracial. Some people seem to dislike Asians I mean. Igot bullied because I have yellow skin and blackhair. I mean what’s the difference? We are all humansbut I haven’t done anything to offend them, I getcalled ‘chink’ and ‘gook’ and people say ‘go back towhere you came from’. This shit sucks! If I had thechoice I would go back. I don’t want to take overanyone’s land. Why don’t they leave us alone and let

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us be happy. We work just as hard as everybody else.Please why is it so racist. (CCHS F 106/16)

The racialised dimension of hegemonic Anglo-Australianmasculinity was foregrounded by boys of diverse Asianbackgrounds in our study, such as by the following ChineseIndonesian boy:

I came from Indonesia, and I was amazed (not surprisedamazed, crappy amazed) how different life is. Where Icome from, nobody gives people shit, teases or bulliesthem. Since I came here [to Australia] people havegiven me shit. Even some of my friends punch me. I'mnot accustomed to punching. I'm just so different.Being at school is like going to the army because boyshave been brought up to a custom. There are groupsaround the school – ‘surfers’, ‘the wogs’, ‘the nerds’and ‘the rejects’. I'm not saying that I am one of therejects, no, it's because I feel like a reject. Beinggiven shit all this time is not jolly. You feel leftout ... If you do something bad everybody gives youshit forever. They remember it ... if you wear asurfie shirt, cargo pants ... if you wear somethingdifferent, they 'brand' you ‘techno’, ‘rapper’. Whatis this?!! This is bullshit!! Why do people brand you?Some of my friends want me to be something I'm not.That's why I feel bad all the time. I don't have goodskill at sport. I play tennis well and I'm not verysmart…If you're not smart or attractive or good atsport you're basically a reject, a piece of shit. Thisis basically old stereotyping. I can’t believe itstill exists today. (CCHS M 14/16)

The comment that this boy is not used to ‘punching’ issignificant and signals that he does his masculinity in waysthat are differentiated from the Anglo-Australian boys.Moreover, he appears to be highlighting the extent to whichbullying and harassment is about normalisation – those whoare considered not to fit the norm are harassed. One must

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also wear the right clothes and play the right sport. Tennis,for example, does not appear to carry any masculinityconfirming status among the Anglo-Australian boys. CCHS 14also seems to be highlighting that ‘giving other people shit’plays a significant role in how the dominant boys fashiontheir masculinities in peer group situations. It is a meansby which they can ‘get a laugh’ at the expense of someoneelse who becomes the butt of the put-downs (see Kehily andNayak, 1997; Martino, 1999). What also needs to beforegrounded here is how such normative constructions of ahegemonic heterosexual masculinity, read as Anglo-Australian, are identified as the benchmark against whichthe masculinities of those boys from culturally diversebackgrounds are measured and, hence, inferiorised (seeMartino & Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2003).

For students from culturally diverse backgrounds the issueof whiteness (Aveling, 1998; Levine-Rasky, 1998) emerged asa significant influence driving the normalisation that theyencountered from other students at school:

For someone coming from an Asian background studyinghere in Australia it is very troublesome. It began inYear 9 (aged 14). Black hair, small eyes and yellowskin is a description which is not difficult to missand although it was only verbal abuse it has causedme to view the Australian society in a very differentmanner. I have learnt that how you look, how you talkand how you act reflects greatly which society youbelong to. … I am certainly not implying that allAustralians are prejudiced. In fact, since my stayhere I have met many decent and respectfulAustralians who are very down to earth. My message isthat it has greatly affected my studies here inAustralia. Who the fuck do the racists thinks theyare!! We Asians have nothing against them. We havedone nothing to hurt or harm them! (CCHS F 108/ 16 )

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People pick on you and are racist and sexist andthink you’re crap. I am not Aboriginal, but my sisteris and she gets enough shit from everyone, includingmy step-dad. She doesn’t need it any more. Peopleneed to grow up and respect each other a little more.(GHS F 70/15)

The following boy who identifies himself as ‘a whiteAustralian’ is also subjected to harassment because hechooses to befriend others from culturally diversebackgrounds:

I often see racist people at school who offendme and other people. Although I am a whiteAustralian, I am friends with people from all overthe world e.g UK, Italy, Spain, Japan, SE Asia,America etc. I sometimes get shit because of it, butthere is nothing I can do about it and I don't reallycare because despite threats I ignore themwholeheartedly and no malice has ever been directedagainst me. Bullies are everywhere at my school, butI have learned to accept it and they don't scareme .. I have had threats but nothing has evermaterialised. But some people live in fear. I findthat disgusting that some people are too busy puttingothers down and some people are believing them. (CCHSM 4/15)

And so a racist white mentality is also identified asdriving bullying practices at school with this boyindicating that some students live in fear of being targetedbecause of their cultural background. In fact, this issupported by the following girls who claim that being a‘normal Australian’, which means being white, is asignificant factor contributing to their avoidance ofdiscrimination at school:

School is good for me because I hardly have anyproblems. Apart from the work, I often enjoy it

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because I can see my friends and socialize. I thinksince I have an Australian background, I’m notsingled out as much as some for being different toothers. (CCHS F 161 / 15)

For me, school is a very enjoyable place. I enjoycoming to it and I have no real problems with gettingalong with people or being discriminated against. Butmaybe that’s just me, maybe I’m a lucky one whodoesn’t have to worry about those sort of thingsbecause I’m a normal Australian girl who is of aboveaverage intelligence - good at sport, therefore, noone really hassles me about anything and I have noreal problems/issues. But I do realize that manyother girls and boys face serious problems each timethey enter the school grounds. Many are classifiedinto the intelligent and not so intelligent groups,then into whether you’re cool or uncool, then whetheryou are Australian or of other background. (CCHS F142 / 16)

Both these girls are able to escape the forms of harassmentdocumented by many other students in our research becausethey fit into the normalised category of being a privilegedwhite Anglo Australian. CCHS 142, however, situates thisissue of normality within broader frameworks ofclassification involving the requirement to act ‘cool’,which ties in with maintaining a particular image orreputation.

Implications and conclusion

Based on students’ narratives about their experiences of normalisation in schools we argue for the need to embrace a ‘pedagogy of difference’ as a basis for building gender and school based reform agendas (see Trifonas, 2002). Within thecurrent context of the new right agenda that has hijacked the boys’ education debates in Australia, the UK and to a lesser extent in Canada, this involves resisting the

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tendency to normalise students’ experiences of schooling on the basis of their gender to consider the various ways in which gender intersects with class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, faith orientation etc. The first step in this process, we argue, is for the need to produce local knowledge about what a diverse range of students really think and feel about their lives at school. Student voice, as we have illustrated in this chapter, can be a rich sourceof knowledge about the impact and effects of power relations, normalisation and difference on boys’ and girls’ engagement with schooling. This knowledge can then feed intobuilding a teacher threshold knowledge about the range of influences impacting on the formation of students’ gendered subjectivities in schools and how these relate to building aculture that is committed to embracing difference. Advocating a pedagogy of difference is consistent with approaches to school reform as elaborated by Newman and Associates (1996), Darling-Hammond (1997), Lingard et al (2003) and Ancess (2003) who emphasize the need to build teacher threshold knowledges about how best to improve the educational and social outcomes for all students in schools.

Interrogating normalisation is at the heart of enacting sucha pedagogy of difference. As Ancess (2003) argues listening to students is an important step in establishing more horizontal power relations in schools that involve a genuinewillingness on behalf of educators to create communities of commitment and pastoral care. Creating such school cultures are the building blocks for professional learning communities in schools that are committed to pedagogies of difference as a countervailing force to normalisation. As ishighlighted by the following students’ survey responses, many young people in schools already engage in practices of self-problematisation and demonstrate the capacity and willingness to interrogate the extent to which normalisation, regulation and surveillance impose limits on their freedom to choose less oppressive ways of being:

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At school I just stick to what everyone else does andtry not to stand out. That way you can't becriticised or hassled. (CCHS M 5/14)

School for me is like mass conformity in its greatestform. I frequently hear ‘freak’ yelled at me as Iwalk down the hall and I feel proud. (GHS F 102/15)

A big issue between boys and girls is boys always getteased in year 8-10 about having a small penis or ina girls case small breasts … By people saying thingslike, “You’re such a surfboard”, it makes you thinkabout it all the time. That's why so many girls wantto get plastic surgery, and I happen to be one ofthem. (GHS F 74/15)

On the basis of these responses and of those we have drawnon in this chapter, we argue that there is an urgent needfor educators in schools to address these dimensions ofenforced normalisation that impact detrimentally on thesocial, emotional and intellectual well-being of both girlsand boys. This is not going to be an easy task, given, asHey argues, that:

The formal pedagogy of schooling [is] about denyingquestions of difference to their subjects(Walkerdine, 1995) [and hence] there [is] littleofficial encouragement to engage school students indiscussions and relations of power (1997: 129-30)

This has been supported by the above students who highlightthat schools are definitely in the business of enforcingconformity to institutional norms governing bodily andsocial comportment as opposed to actively encouraging them“to accept responsibility for their behaviour and to takeinitiatives for change” (Collins et al, 2000: 101). Suchdispositions are fostered when teachers are committed tobuilding communities in their classrooms where students feelthat they are listened to and understood within the context

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of modelling more horizontal power relations. Thisconstitutes a threshold for developing a pedagogy ofdifference which starts with building knowledge aboutstudents’ lives and incorporates this into developing anintellectually demanding and relevant curriculum whereteachers feel a deep sense of responsibility for ensuringthe safety and learning of all students. In short, suchcultures are built on listening to students andacknowledging difference in their lives as opposed toenforcing normalisation and hierarchical power relationswhich incite resistance to authority.

Notes

1.Students aged 14-16 (Year 10 and Year 11) from 6Australian schools completed an extended response surveyquestion. They were asked to write about what life at schoolas a boy or as a girl was like and to describe any problemsthey experienced. The following schools from various socio-economic locations were chosen: a single sex boys’ school ina high socio-economic suburb in Perth, Western Australia(SSBS/ n = 69); a rural government high school in a lowscoio-economic area in New South Wales (RGHS/ n = 40:22boys/18 girls); a Catholic co-educational school in amiddle-class suburb in Perth, Western Australia (CCHS/ n =260:149 boys/111 girls); a government high school in a lowsocio-economic suburb in Perth, Western Australia (GHS/ n =223:101 boys/122 girls); a single sex girls’ school in ahigh socio-economic suburb in Melbourne (SSGS/ n = 171); agovernment high school in a middle socio-economic suburb inMelbourne, Victoria (GHSV) n = 221: 106 boys, 115 girls).

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