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Learning the 'Hard' Way:

Boys, hegemonic masculinity
and the negotiation of
learner identities in the
primary school
Emma Renold
Published online: 28 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Emma Renold (2001) Learning the 'Hard' Way: Boys,
hegemonic masculinity and the negotiation of learner identities in the
primary school, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 22:3, 369-385, DOI:
10.1080/01425690120067980

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 British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2001

Learning the ‘Hard’ Way: boys, hegemonic masculinity and

the negotiation of learner identities in the primary school
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EMMA RENOLD, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales

ABSTRACT The ways in which young boys, masculinity and academic achievement intersect to impact
upon boys’ disposition to and experience of schooling is relatively under-researched. Drawing on data from
an ethnographic exploration into children’s gender and sexual identities in their Žnal year of primary school
(aged 10/11), this paper sets out to illustrate how the discourses of hegemonic masculinity operate to
shape and form boys’ learner identities. The Žrst half of the paper explores the processes and strategies
by which different boys’ negotiate the tensions between the perceived feminisation of academic success
and/or ‘studiousness’, and the need to project a coherent and stable hegemonic masculinity. The remainder
of the paper examines the increasing pressures of hegemonic masculinity upon high-achieving boys, and
the extent to which some boys managed to carve out and maintain alternative masculinities. The
implications for current and future interventions and initiatives, directed at boys’ attitudes and experiences
of schooling and schoolwork, are briey outlined in the concluding sections.

Introduction
Since Paul Willis’ (1977) early study of boys’ cultures and sub-cultures of pro-school and
anti-school masculinities, depicted through the ‘Lads’ and the ‘Earoles’, there have been
many secondary-school ethnographies that explore how academic streaming and
achievement produce sets of dividing masculinising practices. Note for example, Kessler
et al.’s (1985) sporting ‘Bloods’ and academic ‘Cyrils’, Connoll’s (1989) ‘cool boys’, ‘swots’
and ‘wimps’, Mac an Ghaill’s (1994) ‘Macho Lads’ and ‘Academic Achievers’, and
Gilbert & Gilbert’s (1998) ‘Nerds’ and Scruffs’. Such research into boys’ schooling
cultures has also illustrated the feminisation of male academic success, with many boys
con ating high achievement and academic study with femininity or something that ‘girls
do’ (Wolpe, 1988; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Parry, 1996; Epstein, 1998; Paetcher, 1998).
Wolpe (1988), for example, illustrates how being ‘clever’ is often interpreted as an
absence of an overt subscription to dominant modes of masculinity. Developing this idea,
Mac an Ghaill (1994) describes how his ‘academic achievers’ were positioned as
‘effeminate’, and consequently bullied because of their perceived masculine ‘lack’ and
investment in non-hegemonic versions of masculinity. Walker’s (1988) study further
ISSN 0142-569 2 (print)/ISSN 1465-334 6 (online)/01/030369-17 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0142569012006798 0
 370 E. Renold

TABLE I. Percentage of boys and girls achieving Levels 2, 3, 4* and 5 in two Year 6 classes at Key Stage 2 in English

Hirstwood Primary Tipton Primary

(17 girls, 13 boys) (15 girls, 14 boys)

Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5

Boys 0 15 69 15 7 36 50 7
Girls 0 0 82 24 7 40 50 7

*The national percentage for pupils at Key Stage 2, Level 4 English was 57% (source: The Standards Site @
www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/performance/html/KS2)

illustrates the different ways in which ‘sporting’ boys negotiated the academic side of
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schooling through maintaining a strong commitment to a masculinised active, competi-

tive and misogynist culture that revolved around sports, ‘being hard’ and girlfriends.
Investigations into the relationship between boys, masculinity and academic achieve-
ment re-surfaced in the mid-1990s as a response to governmental moral panics into the
apparent national pattern of ‘under’-achieving boys at GCSE level (Arnot et al., 1996;
OFSTED/Equal opportunities commission, 1996; QCA, 1998) and a surge of media
interest positing a number of interpretations as to the cause of the ‘gender gap’. These
included the ‘new lad’ culture, a lack of positive male role models, the nature of
assessment, and a general ‘blaming’ discourse directed at girls and women teachers (see
Bright, 1998; Carvel, 1998; Chaudary, 1998). As a result, there have been a number of
books and papers dedicated to gender and achievement (Head, 1999; Bleach, 1998;
Epstein et al., 1998a; Younger et al., 1999; Francis 2000a,b; GrifŽ n, 2000; Whitelaw et al.,
2000). While the majority make more complex and problematise the alleged ‘growing’
nature of the gender gap (Gorard et al., 1999), and the discourses involved in producing
and perpetuating the ‘under’-achieving boy (Epstein et al., 1998b; Raphael-Reed, 1999),
most acknowledge that gender differentiation operates overwhelmingly at the higher
attainment levels in favour of girls (particularly in English) at primary levels (Key Stage
2), secondary levels (GCSE) and, more recently, post-compulsory levels (‘A’-levels). The
SAT results in the two primary schools drawn on for this paper were no exception
overall, and the 59 boys’ and girls’ attainment results in the two Year 6 classrooms in
which the research was conducted indicate that girls achieved slightly higher at Levels
4 and 5 at Key Stage 2 in English than boys (see Table I).
Despite girls’ achieving higher results (in English) at Key Stage 2, much of the current
media reporting and research has been predominantly pre-occupied with adolescent
boys’ in secondary schools. Indeed, studies into the ways in which primary-school boys
negotiate academic success and achievement is relatively under-represented (although,
see Daniels et al., 1999), as are younger boys’ cultures of masculinity and their afŽ liations
and attitude to school in general (Epstein, 1998; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998). Notable
exceptions include a number of recent ethnographic studies examining children’s
gendered cultures in the primary school (Davies, 1993a; Thorne, 1993); in particular,
Connolly’s research into young children’s gendered and racialised identities (1996, 1998),
Skelton’s research into primary school boys and hegemonic masculinity (1996, 1997), and
Francis’ study of primary school children’s constructions of gender and power (1997a,b,
1998). Producing similar ‘Ž ndings’, particularly in relation to the means by which
primary-school-aged children actively construct, manage and negotiate their gendered
identities, this paper makes more complex the relationship between school success,
schoolwork and the formation of boys’ masculinities, by examining the processes by
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 371

TABLE II. Number of boys and girls in two

Year 6 classes

Tipton Hirstwood

Boys 13 13
Girls 16 17
Total 29 30

which boys differentially manage and maintain their success within the ofŽ cial ‘academic’
school and their status (or not) as ‘hegemonic’ boys within the informal ‘social’ school.
Such a focus is intended to go some way to Ž lling empirical and conceptual gaps in the
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literature: Ž rst, in terms of re-focusing the under-achievement debate from secondary to

primary school boys, and the impact that the production of hierarchical and hegemonic
masculinities has upon boys’ academic achievement; second, in terms of examining and
theorising the process in which the relatively neglected accounts of high-achieving boys
actively construct and perform ‘acceptable’ masculinities as they achieve ‘academically’;
and third, to explore the extent and conditions in which high-achieving boys could reject
and resist contemporary forms of hegemonic masculinity.

Overview of the Schools and the Sample

The data and analyses presented in this paper derive from recently completed doctoral
research from a 1-year-long ethnographic study exploring the construction of children’s
gender and sexual identities in their Ž nal year (Year 6) of primary school (Renold, 1999).
The research was conducted during the academic year 1995–1996 in two primary
schools situated in a small semi-rural town in the East of England. The Ž rst school,
Tipton Primary, is a mixed-sex Local Education Authority (LEA)-controlled school with
a declining pupil roll of 249 and SAT results below the national average at the time of
research. The second school, Hirstwood Primary, is also a mixed-sex LEA-controlled
school that has expanded and almost doubled in size over the past 9 years, with a rising
pupil roll of 392 and SAT results above the national average. Tipton’s catchment area
serves white ‘working’- and ‘middle’-class families, while Hirstwood serves predominantly
white ‘middle’-class families. Breakdown of the sample in terms of gender (Table II),
social background (Table III) and SAT results (Table I) of the boys and girls in the two
Year 6 classrooms, are presented.

Methods and Methodology

Designing and conducting research that foregrounds children’s subjective experiences
and recognises children as active subjects constructing and mediating their own social

TABLE III. Summary of social-class composition

Middle Intermediate Working

Tipton Primary 8 12 9
Hirstwood 12 13 5
 372 E. Renold

worlds is becoming increasingly widespread among social scientists researching children

and young people (note the recent ESRC-funded research programme, ‘Children 5–16:
growing into the 21st century’ [1]). My research into primary school children’s construc-
tions of their gender and sexual identities adopted a similar methodological approach,
particularly the commitment to conduct the research from the ‘children’s standpoint’
(Alanen, 1994). Alongside on-going participant ‘observation’, one of the main methods
employed to ‘get close’ to children’s social worlds was through unstructured, exploratory
group interviews. Not only was it possible to explore how children’s accounts are
constructed, expressed, opposed, shared and changed through social interaction
(Kitzinger, 1994; Denscombe, 1995), group interviews, when organised by friendship
groups, were particularly effective in enabling participatory research with young children.
Conducting interviews with friendship groups helped create a non-threatening, trust-
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ing and comfortable atmosphere. Enabling them to control the focus of the interview by
encouraging them to raise their own issues and experiences also helped destabilise the
adult-centracism embedded in many research projects conducted with children, and
went some way to promote participation and empowerment during the research process.
Indeed, the exploratory nature of the group interviews often took on unexpected
directions (see Renold, 2001), including discussions[2] and disclosures on more sensitive
areas such as bullying, homophobia, sexual harassment, boyfriends and girlfriends, as
well as talk about schoolwork, SATS, play, friendships, music, fashion and appearance.
One Year 6 class was chosen in each school and a total of 59 children were involved in
the research. Each child participated in six group interviews (between three and Ž ve
children) over the course of their Ž nal year. Interviews were tape-recorded and conduc-
ted in a variety of settings from empty classrooms and school libraries to cloakrooms and
corridors. Data presented in this paper thus includes excerpts from Ž eldnotes and
analytic memos, but centralises children’s own observations, experiences and ‘collective
rememberings’ (Kitzinger, 1994). Moreover, the longitudinal nature of the research also
enabled a more complex, dynamic and  uid account of what Davies (1993a) calls the
‘processes of subjectiŽ cation’, which in this case, pivot around children’s constructions of
their gender (and learner) identities, the theoretical underpinnings of which provides the
focus for the following section.

Gender as Relational, Multiple and Becoming

Rejections and criticisms surrounding sex-role socialisation theories have been well
documented within and outside educational research. Feminist theory played a strong
part in rendering their essentialistic and deterministic nature as conceptually inadequate
in capturing the complexity, contradictoriness and contingency of gender identities (see
Connell, 1989; Carrigan et al., 1987; Arnot & Weiner, 1987; Connell, 1989). An
increasing number of researchers involved in gender studies now locate the individual or
‘subject’ not as a passive recipient that is imprinted upon or ‘socialised’ by ‘society’, but
as a subject imbued with agency and self-knowledge (Davies, 1993b). This approach to
‘gender’ has shifted from ‘roles’ that males and females ‘learn’ to an understanding of the
forming of gender identities as relational, multiple and diverse; hence, the more recent
concepts of masculinities and femininities often constructed in opposition to each other
(e.g. to be male is not to be female and vice versa). Moreover, these are identities that
children actively construct and negotiate through a complex web of social interaction.
From viewing gender as relational and multiple, more recent theories (particularly
those located within poststructuralist paradigms) have conceptualised gender not as
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 373

something singularly possessed or something that ‘is’, but something continually created
through a series of performances and repetitive acts that constitute the illusion of
a ‘proper’, ‘natural’ or ‘Ž xed’ gender (Butler, 1990). This is not, however, to deny
the notion of ‘hierarchical masculinities’ or the (discursive) forces of ‘hegemonic mas-
culinity’[3], which legitimate certain ways of ‘being’ male through the subordination
and pathologisation of alternative masculine and feminine subject positions[4]. Indeed,
this is primarily the focus of the subsequent analysis. In this study, the culturally
dominant form of masculinity was produced through discourses and practices of Ž ghting
(being ‘hard’) and football (being ‘sporty’). Kenway & Fitzclarence (1997, p. 122) also
noted that;

Male dominance/subordination relations are often worked out through the use
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of legitimate (sport) and illegitimate (brawling and bashing) physical violence.

It is the latter matrix of power relations that differentially positions and re-positions boys
(and girls), and the social and emotional consequences of such positionings that this
article is concerned with addressing. In particular, I draw upon Connell’s (1995, p. 210)
concept of ‘layering’, in which he explores the contradictions that lie beneath the surface
of apparently stable, settled and coherent masculinities. More speciŽ cally, I set out to
empirically explore how boys live-out the various, and often hierarchical and contradic-
tory, layers of masculinity and, in particular, the processes by which different boys
experience, manage, negotiate (and seek to resolve) the tensions between the perceived
feminisation of academic success/studiousness and the pressures of hegemonic masculin-
ity. Moreover, conceptualising the constitutive nature of gender, and concomitantly
masculinity, as continually becoming, multiple, shifting and contradictory, increases our
understanding regarding the extent to which hegemonic masculinities can be contested
and replaced.

When School’s Not ‘Cool’: Negotiating Academic Success

As other studies examining the relationship between academic achievement at school and
masculinity have illustrated, it is not solely academic success, but boys’ attitudes and
embodied dispositions to academic study that need to be negotiated (Adler & Adler,
1998; Epstein 1998; Gilbert of Gilbert, 1998). This includes not only boys who are
designated ‘high achievers’ (through setting or daily tests), but includes boys who are
perceived by others (including the teacher) as ‘studious’. Being ‘studious’ can involve
quiet, settled study, visibly ‘working hard’ at a task, reading, publicly adopting a
pro-school attitude and taking test results seriously. By engaging or perceived to be
engaging in any of these activities/body postures, boys potentially leave themselves open
to verbal abuse and ridicule, and are positioned daily as ‘swots’, ‘geeks’, ‘nerds’ and
‘squares’. Two-thirds of the boys (‘working’ and ‘middle class’) went to great lengths to
avoid studious behaviours, particularly boys who were deemed high achievers. As the
next few extracts illustrate, some boys deployed humorous techniques (including the
teasing and ridiculing of others) and some boys engaged in disruptive, ‘rule-breaking’
behaviours. Others played down their achievements. Each strategy was a means of
concealing conformist attitudes to schooling and to avoid being positioned as studious.
They also seemed to be ways of divorcing academic success from a conformist ‘working
hard’ discourse that produced the subordinate male subject positions.
 374 E. Renold

Mucking, Messing and ‘Having a Laugh’

Alicia and I walk back to the classroom following an interview. She tells me
how she thinks the boys mess about and the girls chat. She explains to me
(which conŽ rms my observations) that the boys and some of the girls will avoid
work if they can. She tells me how she can’t work with Jake and his friends
because they are always ‘messing around’ when they work [MN: I have noticed
over the past 8 months how many of the boys at Hirstwood are continually
‘joking around’ when they are supposed to be ‘on task’ and how they seem to
try hard not to look like they are ‘working’].
In the main, humour has often been explored as a ‘coping strategy’ (Mealyea, 1989;
Woods, 1990) and an ‘antidote’ to schooling (Woods 1976). Woods (1976, p. 185)
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describes pupils’ humorous practices as ‘natural product(s)’ and responses to the ‘exigen-
cies of the institution’, such as ‘boredom’, ‘ritual’, ‘routine’, ‘regulation’ and ‘oppressive
authority’, particularly by oppressed groups. Similarly, Willis’ (1977) portrayal of humour
as the product of class tensions and Dubberly’s (1988) theory of humour as ‘resistance’
to the pressures of a middle-class school ethos, also suggest that it is oppressed groups
(particularly ‘working-class’ groups) who beneŽ t most, coping with and transforming their
schooling experiences through parody and subversion. What all the latter studies
promote is the idea that humour is a product, an effect or a strategy through which
pupils cope with the boredom or disaffection with school.
However, the majority of pupils who disrupted ‘ofŽ cial’ classroom ‘rules’ by ‘mucking’
and ‘messing’ included boys who were described as ‘middle-class’, ‘clever’ and whose
SAT results conŽ rmed above-average academic ability. These Ž ndings concur with
Pollard (1987, p. 206), whose ‘jokers’ were predominantly middle class and who
combined ‘having a laugh’ with an eager, although disguised, willingness to learn. In
addition to Pollard, I suggest that the jokers’ injection of humour into classroom life was
also a way of securing an academic identity that did not equate academic success or
studiousness with ‘square’ or ‘geek’. Humour, or ‘having a laugh’, thus went some way
to dislocate academic effort from academic success (Mac an Ghaill, 1994). In combi-
nation with marking themselves as ‘jokers’ to detract attention away from their engage-
ment in academic work, embodied practices of play-Ž ghting, rocking on chairs or sitting
on them backwards and throwing ‘academic’ equipment (such as rulers, erasers, paper)
during designated study time also subverted the feminisation of passive learning/study
(Walkerdine, 1990). Bringing ‘outside’ behaviours into the classroom (Skelton, 1996), thus
presenting a more active, masculinised self, went some way to evade looking as though
they were ‘working’ and often prevented them being positioned through the many ‘nerd’
labels.
Another strategy in concealing identiŽ cations with academic success, and in some
cases lack of it, was the use of hyperbole and/or disaffection, combined with humour, in
talking about particular achievements. When asked, the majority of boys overestimated
their SAT scores. Others could not discuss their performances seriously. The exaggera-
tions that were rarely said in earnest were by those of above-average ability, perhaps
because dismissing them as unimportant signiŽ ed the necessary disinterest required in the
production of non-academic conformity and ‘natural’ intelligence. This contrasted with
the majority of girls who were predominantly realistic if a little reticent in declaring high
SAT scores.
However, boys’ use of humour also included ridiculing girls’ academic efforts and
successes as the three extracts below illustrate.
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 375

Tina: It’s just sometimes, the boys laugh at you if you get a question
wrong/
Carrie: Yeah/
Tina: And when we were doing recorders, they were laughing and putting
us off and everything.
ER: Does that happen in class?
Tina: It did in our three minute talk, they were laughing.
ER: But did you laugh at them then they were doing theirs?
Tina: No … they sort of giggle at ours and everything
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Everybody is working in groups of three or four. Each group is drawing and

writing about a recent visit to a local historic town. Tom looks over at
Kimberly’s table. He then gets up and walks up to them, peering at their work
and sneers; ‘What is that?— My dog could do better than that … my dogs
bum could do better than that’ and walks off.
Julia is engrossed in a very long (400 pages) novel that Mrs Fryer (class teacher)
has handed her to read. Two of the boys opposite tell her that she is ‘mad’ to
read a book like that and start laughing. Julia responds with, ‘so, I like reading’
and continues to read.
Being academically oriented, for a boy, is often devalued and denigrated because of its
equation with ‘femininity’. Despite the positionings associated with academic success,
however, there was still a strong need to assert their academic superiority over girls,
which as the previous extracts illustrate, often took the form of depicting their ‘achieve-
ments’ as ‘failures’, belittling their serious commitment to schoolwork and mocking their
contributions in whole-class discussions (see also Mahony, 1985; Francis, 2000b).

‘I’m Not a Geek’: Hegemonic Masculinity in the Classroom

The majority of boys engaged in the performances and rituals already described did so,
it seemed, to avoid being subordinately positioned as ‘geeks’ or ‘squares’. Like Best’s
(1983) ‘losers’, Thorne’s (1993) ‘sissy’s and Eder et al.’s (1995) ‘isolates’, being ‘square’ or
being a ‘geek’ was a label applied to just over one-third of boys in the study, all of which
failed to cultivate or chose not to cultivate their masculinity through hegemonic
masculine discourses and practices. As the Ž rst extract illustrates, this could include
‘studious’ or high-achieving boys (see also Measor & Woods, 1984; Parker, 1996; Adler
& Adler, 1998):
ER: So, do you feel quite conŽ dent in your work, do you feel you do
well at school?
Jay and Rick: Sort of.
ER: Do people make fun of you if you do well? (responding to a
comment made earlier in the interview).
Jay: Yeah.
Rick: They say ‘you’re square’/
 376 E. Renold

Jay: Yeah some people say ‘you’re square’

ER: Who are ‘some people’?
Jay: Er the bullies … I can’t name names, coz if I do say names I’ll
get beaten up.
ER: Well it’s up to you, you don’t have to tell me but I assure you
that this tape is only listened to by me, so no-one will/Ž nd out
Rick: Adam (from a different class) he kicks and beats you up and stuff/
It also included boys who rejected sports and chose not to invest in developing their
sporting skills, particularly within the game of football (see also Renold, 1997; Skelton,
1999; Swain, 2000):
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Adrian: If Stuart and Damion had, didn’t have like like, I can’t say dumb but
they are not dumb in clever ways, in brain ways, but they’re dumb in
other ways/
Craig: Like Football and stuff like that.
ER: Does that make them feel isolated … I mean in the classroom they are
all on the same table, but in the playground, what happens on the
playground?
Adrian: Well Liam’s always beating him up.
And it incorporated boys who did were not perceived by other boys as ‘risk-takers’ or
‘pro-school’:
Colin: And Damion, he never, at P.E. he goes on the apparatus, we got
outside, he doesn’t dare do any  ips off or something over the ladder
thing/
Adrian: Yeah, they’re not adventurous, they’re not adventurous/ they are not
adventurous.
Colin: They just like sitting at/home
Darren: Maths maths maths maths/
Pete: And they don’t dare to go on top of the climbing frame or anything like
that.
Darren: Yeah, they just get on one line and go ‘oh that’s high enough thank
you’.
Other names that marked and marginalised them as different included ‘babies’, ‘sad’ and
‘dorks’ (which allowed other boys to position themselves as dominant and ‘normal’).
Differences also included the way they talked (‘he sounds gay’), the way they dressed (‘sad
old shoes’), the games they played (‘babyish games’), the music they liked (preferring
‘Whitney Houston’ over ‘Nirvana’), and even the toys they played with (preferring cars
over computer games). Each boy, although to varying degrees, was positioned as a
subordinate ‘Other’ within a hegemonic masculine matrix that equates ‘other’, or
‘non-macho’ identiŽ cations, with the ‘feminine’ (‘they say I’m like a girl’), or discourses/
practices such as crying, weakness, passivity and immaturity, with femininity.
Displaying an ‘abnormal’ or questionable ‘masculine’ identity also throws doubt on a
boys’ hetero-sexuality, thereby creating potential for their behaviours/practices to be
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 377

‘homosexualised’ (see Butler, 1990). Thus, in the case of Damion and Simon, when their
‘masculinity’ was called into question, their high academic achievements and conformity
to the schools ‘ofŽ cial’ pedagogy not only positioned them as ‘square-bears’ and
‘goody-goodies’, but the labels’ ‘feminine’ connotations, juxtaposed with their maleness,
had implications for their derogatory construction as homosexual ‘gay’:
ER: What about you two have they (other boys) called you gay or not? (in
response to an earlier comment).

Murray: No/not me.

Damion: Yeah.
Stuart: They did though, they do call me gay (Damion nods).
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The position of ‘square’ and ‘geek’ was thus an ambiguous position to occupy and could
be called on, for example, to denigrate studious boys or boys who preferred ‘Power
Rangers’[5] over football. Such positions, however, not only ‘feminised’ boys’ behaviours,
but involved (homo)sexual connotations (see Epstein, 1998; Letts & Sears, 1999; Renold,
2000) and formed the basis of many daily verbal attacks and physical assaults, character-
ised by many boys as ‘bullying’. While there is obviously a need for further research into
how boys’ learner identities intersect with dominant notions of hegemonic masculinity,
these initial Ž ndings suggest that the con ation between non-hegemonic forms of
masculinity and ‘studious’ discourses and practices make academic study problematic for
all boys, and not just low-achieving boys. Furthermore, as the next section sets out in
more detail, the pressure to conform and perform as ‘hegemonic’ seemed to increase
over the academic year, particularly for high-achieving non-hegemonic boys.

Joining the Opposition: from ‘sissy’ to ‘star’

Approximately two-thirds of boys were involved in daily performances that differentiated
them from ‘Other’ subordinate masculine subject positions in an attempt to maintain
their status, albeit fragile, as dominant hegemonic boys. There was, however, an
increasing number of studious and high-achieving ‘subordinate’ boys in both schools,
towards the onset of the SATS, who were strategically disassociating themselves from the
activities of their non-hegemonic peers and investing heavily in dominant masculine
practices, such as Ž ghting, rule-transcending and football. It seemed that these boys were
aware, as Adler & Adler (1998) suggest, that, by engaging in other status-enhancing
behaviour (such as sport), the labels of ‘goody-goody’ could be nulliŽ ed. Consequently,
and possibly due to the constant teasing and bullying they received, they were making
a conscious and noticeable effort to change their ways, and, as one boy put it, ‘join the
opposition’.‘Stuart’s story’ (see next section) traces, in detail, the transformative processes
and identity work of a white, middle-class high-achieving boy’s (Levels 5 and 6 in SATS)
effort to smooth out the contradictory ‘layers’ within the hierarchy of masculinities,
which produced him as ‘sissy’ and ‘square’, and negotiate a more acceptable masculinity
as football ‘star’:

Stuart’s Story
The Ž rst term, as the following extract illustrates, saw Stuart being teased, ridiculed and
ostracised by dominant peer groups:
 378 E. Renold

Timothy and Aaron tease Stuart about his football and train drawings. They
take his book from him and laugh at his pictures. Pete walks over to the group
and asks Aaron and Timothy to cross their Ž ngers. Stuart does too even though
he is not asked. Pete then sees this and says to Stuart, ‘not you, not you’. Stuart
uncrosses his Ž ngers and looks quite upset. (Classroom)
However, from expressing and exhibiting no real interest in football or sport prior to
Year 6, the following extract marks Stuart’s overt if tentative interest in becoming part
of the dominant playground culture:
‘The Year 6 boys are playing football with a tennis ball (bar Damion, William
and Murray). Once more, Stuart is hanging around the edges and collecting
the ball if it strays from the game’s boundaries. He is not thanked, but almost
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expected to be a ball fetcher now. (Playground)

In the second term, Stuart joins one of the school’s football teams (B squad) and there
is a noticeable difference regarding his classroom behaviour. He now completes set
schoolwork in half the time and devotes the latter half to reading football magazines and
creating fantasy football leagues. These activities are greatly admired by his (male) peers.
While consistently maintaining high academic results, Stuart only does the bare
minimum regarding set class work. He seems to Ž nish the set work as quickly
as he can and then spends the rest of the lesson reading football magazines
hidden behind his text book. Many of the boys are aware that he does this and
think it is ‘cool’. (Classroom) [MN]
From ‘ball catcher’ and ‘goal post’ in the Ž rst term to revered football ‘star’ as ‘goalie’
towards the end of the middle term, Stuart’s acceptance and assimilation into the
hegemonic footballers’ culture seems to directly correlate with the fact that Stuart is no
longer bullied or ostracised by his male peers.:
Stuart is now fully integrated into the Year 6 games of football as a goalie. He
walks in and out (from playground to classroom) with them and is no longer
ostracised or bullied by the majority of the ‘sporting’ boys. He seems to have
developed quite a heroic status as a goalie. (Playground) [MN]
While Stuart’s ‘star’ status conŽ rm Gilbert and Gilbert’s Ž ndings that what distinguishes
the ‘nerds’ from the ‘pro-school’ boys is sport, it was difŽ cult to get a sense of how far
Stuart consciously and strategically developed an interest and skill in football to achieve
a more dominant masculinity and re-position his subordinate status with the sole
intention of staving off the bullying and teasing. His male peers were, however, clearly
aware of the relation between ‘Ž tting in’, ‘playing football’ and becoming an acceptable,
hegemonic male:
ER: So who gets it the most in your class? (bullying).
Martin: It’s always the square bears, but Stuart isn’t a square/bear any-
more??????
Michael: Stuart, everyone likes Stuart, apart from Liam, Damion/ and
Colin: Yeah, Stuart’s got a lot better/ hasn’t he?
Martin: Last year Stuart was, we didn’t like him that much/
Michael: No not at all.
ER: What was he like in Year 6? (all talk at once, then Colin talks)
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 379

Colin: It was like, here’s dick head lets go and beat him in and stuff like that.
…
ER: Do you think Stuart has actually changed?
Colin: Yeah a lot.
Martin: He’s brilliant in goal
ER: Is he?
Colin: He used to be rubbish, but now he’s class/
…
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ER: Do you like him better as a person now?

Colin: Yeah deŽ nitely.
Darren: Yeah.
Darren: He’s changed a bit as well
Colin: Yeah, he doesn’t play with Damion anymore, coz coz we don’t like
people like Damion.
Colin: Yeah, he’s really changed, he’s just come on to our table and has just
Ž tted in.
Darren: He’s quite funny, sometimes as well.
ER: So do you think he has Ž tted in Colin because of the football?
Colin: Yeah yeah.
Darren: Yeah.
However, while the majority of boys readily accepted and to some extent created Stuart’s
transformation from ‘sissy’ to ‘star’ (thus simultaneously reinforcing and conŽ rming their
hegemonic status), his ‘identity management’ was publicly rejected by his female
contemporaries. Through a weekly, exclusionary ritual of verbal taunts and jibes aimed
at both his gender (‘gay’, ‘geek’) and learner (‘square’) identity, the girls in his class
continued to expose the contradictory ‘layers’ that Stuart was trying so hard to
suppress[6]. However, not all boys chose to invest in and produce more ‘acceptable’
hegemonic masculinities, as the following section illustrates.

Hanging On in There: Maintaining Alternative Masculinities

Half of the high-achieving non-hegemonic boys at the beginning of the study refused to
‘join the opposition’ and managed to maintain alternative masculinities. However, the
majority of these boys were from the Year 6 class at Hirstwood Primary. Subsequently,
it could be argued that the greater number of high-achieving boys at Hirstwood, in
comparison with the relatively low number of high-achieving boys’ at Tipton Primary,
in some way enabled the creation of alternative identities via shared characteristics (e.g.
academic attainment, social class, rejection of ‘hegemonic’ masculinity) and peer group
solidarity. Indeed, the group of boys at Hirstwood engaged in a similar strategy to
Connolly’s (1996) South Asian boys, and formed a group identity based around role-play
 380 E. Renold

and fantasy games (possibly in an attempt to avoid dominant football practices). This
freedom, however, became increasingly difŽ cult to sustain as the dominant classiŽ catory
system of football/non-football became more entrenched in the upper years. Not only,
as Connolly’s (1996, p. 199) boys experienced, did their exclusion and avoidance
reinforce others’ ‘perceptions of them as different and alien’, but by not playing football
they were located alongside the infants and girls, thus aligning them with ‘immaturity’,
‘femininity’ and ‘homosexuality’.
While the boys’ experience already described suggests that it is possible to create
alternative and counter masculinities, it is important to stress the social, physical and
emotional risks and dangers involved in maintaining their production. The overarching
response was to ignore the taunts, jibes and ridicule, and remove themselves from the
physical spaces of their dominating peers. Retreating to the secluded and private
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wildlife/environment area in their school grounds was a common strategy. Walker’s

(1988) three friends similarly found a safe haven in the radio room, and Connolly’s (1996)
South Asian boys played near the bushes and on the edges of the playground. However,
ignoring or isolating themselves from the bullies in their school was not always easy, as
one boy explains when he describes how even when he walks away: ‘they just follow you’.
Moreover, incidents such as stealing equipment or punches in the library corner were
reported, thus emphasising the danger and difŽ culty of avoiding confrontations in the
classroom. While their friendship alliance provided a safe and secure environment that
they used to share and disclose experiences, and discuss strategies of retaliation and
revenge, such tactics often proved futile, and the bullying continued to such an extent
that some of the boys feared the playground and others admitted that it was affecting
their schoolwork:
ER: Does it affect you a lot?
All: Mmmmmm.
Simon and Graham: Well sometimes.
Graham: Yeah, sometimes you just don’t feel feel like going out to
play.
…
Neil: But erm play times I Ž nd quite boring now coz we can
never play any of the games, in some ways I’d far rather/
Graham and Simon: Stay in and do work.
Neil: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to do, well I wouldn’t mind.
…
ER: Yeah … does this affect your work?
Simon: Yeah it sometime/s does.
Graham: Err yeah.
Collectivity, established through friendship networks and shared solidarity, appeared to
be a signiŽ cant characteristic in maintaining an alternative male identity (Connell, 1995).
However, with many of their friends defecting to dominant peer groups and ditching
fantasy games for football, carving out alternative masculinities was becoming an
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 381

increasing struggle. Moreover, it is a struggle that often goes unreported, particularly

within a current governmental and media climate dedicated to ‘solving’ and intervening
in the various social and cultural processes that produce ‘under’-achieving boys.

Discussion
This article has focused on how dominant and hegemonic forms of masculinity impact
on, intersect and shape boys’ dispositions to schooling, schoolwork and academic
achievement. Many boys were learning the hard way, and early on in their schooling
careers, that studiousness and academic success con ict with conventional forms of
hegemonic masculinity. While it is widely acknowledged, particularly at the secondary-
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school level, that academic achievement is problematic for boys being and becoming
‘boys’, less is known regarding the processes by which boys actively negotiate their
gender identities with their learner identities, the forces of hegemonic masculinity upon
high-achieving primary school boys and the social space for carving out alternative
masculinities among high-achievers. This paper has gone some way to illuminate some
of these processes, practices and experiences.
First, I explored how the school, as a ‘social’ and ‘learning’ environment’, produced
contradictory masculinities, the performative and fragile nature of which necessitated
their routine negotiation on an everyday basis. As a result, an array of strategies and
techniques were adopted by the majority of boys to avoid what were perceived as
‘non-masculine’/‘feminine’ classroom behaviours and practices, and disguise their desire
for, or achievement of, academic success. These included: bringing ‘outside’ behaviours
into the classroom; playing down academic success; teasing and bullying studious or
high-achieving boys not investing in hegemonic masculinity; and de-valuing girls’
schoolwork by re-positioning their ‘achievements’ as ‘failures’.
The paper further conceptualised the processes of ‘disguise’ and ‘avoidance’ by
drawing upon Connell’s concept of ‘layering’ to explain how ‘on the surface’ boys may
appear to be displaying a seamless, coherent and consistent ‘masculinity’ when ‘under-
neath’ they are involved in an on-going struggle to negotiate classroom and playground
hierarchies. This was particularly evident regarding the tensions and con icts involved
in negotiating high academic achievement with the seemingly increasing pressures
of hegemonic masculinity. Stuart’s transformation story went some way to highlight
the ubiquity and coercive pressures of hegemonic masculinity and traces one boy’s
acute awareness of how the hierarchical layers of masculinity can be manipulated
to forge more ‘acceptable’ masculinities. It also serves to illustrate how some boys
ironically invest in the very forms of masculinity that marginalise and subordinate them.
However, given the social, emotional and physical consequences experienced in main-
taining marginalised masculinities, such ‘transformations’ seemed to provide a much
needed and almost necessary respite. As the third section illustrates, however, it is
important to keep hold of the fact that one-third of high-achieving boys at the beginning
of the study were investing in alternative masculinities, and just over one-half of these
continued to reject the pressures of hegemonic masculinity at the end of the study.
Indeed, as Connell (1996) notes when he discusses a number of ‘gender strategies for
schools’, only by paying close attention to the ‘dynamics of masculinity’, particularly the
means by which alternative masculinities are constructed (peer support/collectivity) and
resisted (gendered and sexualised bullying) can existing patterns of gender relations be
altered or changed.
 382 E. Renold

Recommendations
There is obviously still much to be understood and empirically investigated concerning
children’s gendered cultures and relations produced within the primary school arena and
their negotiation of schooling and differing levels of academic attainment. However,
much of what has been discussed has immediate implications for current UK initiatives
and interventions regarding boys’ achievement and schooling[7]. First, I suggested earlier
how the con ation of non-hegemonic forms of masculinity, femininity and ‘studiousness’
not only makes academic study problematic for all boys, but particularly difŽ cult for boys
(high and low achievers) who would like to, or chose to, invest in and take-up alternative
masculinities. Interventions designed to motivate under-achieving boys through football
study centres and ‘boy-friendly’ texts will thus surely fail to reach this latter group of
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boys. Second, such interventions employ the very discourses that frame academic study
as ‘non-masculine’ and ‘feminine’, and can only operate to perpetuate the discourse that
‘real boys don’t work’ (Epstein, 1998). Third, the impact of the recent re-focusing from
girls’ to boys’ ‘under’-achievements (Raphael-Reed, 1999) neglects the experiences of
‘high-achieving’ boys and the effect that classroom practices (described earlier in the
paper) have upon girls’ experiences of and attitude towards schooling and achievement
(Francis, 2000b). Finally, if we are to understand and make a difference to children’s
future experiences of schooling (both socially and ‘academically’), many of these issues
need to be addressed at the beginning of children’s school careers, when the discourses
surrounding ‘achievement’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘schooling’ are already Ž rmly shaping boys’
and girls’ gender and learner identities.

Correspondence: Emma Renold, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan

Building, King Edward VIII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WT, Wales.

NOTES
Key to transcripts:
(), Background information (includes body movement, emotion, name of speaker, interruptions, tone of voice);
…, Pause; /, Moment when interruption begins; ‘ ’, Direct quotation; ???, Inaudible responses; […], Different
extract from same interview or extract from a different interview to follow; [MN], Methodological Note (akin
to analytic memos).
[1] Details of the research programme ‘Children 5–16: growing into the 21st century’ can be found at the
programme’s website: www.hull.ac.uk/children 5–16 programme/
[2] Data was not systematically collected regarding their experiences beyond the school gates, including
children’s relationships with their families.
[3] Throughout this paper, I draw on the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, adapted from Gramsci by
Carrigan et al. (1987) to explore how, despite the range of masculinities, particular forms of masculinity
are ‘culturally exalted’; their elevated status reliant upon the domination of other men and the
subordination of women and the feminine (Connell, 1987, 1990).
[4] This article explores how boys become gendered by examining how they are discursively positioned and
re-positioned (hence the term ‘subject position’) through the processes of social interaction (Davies &
Harre, 1991).
[5] ‘Power Rangers’ was a fantasy game (adapted from a cartoon) usually played by younger children (ages
4–8).
[6] For further discussion regarding the gendered dimension in the production of ‘acceptable’ masculinities,
see Renold (1999).
[7] Recent initiatives include the football study centres funded under the government’s ‘Playing for Success’
campaign (DfEE, 2000) and disciplinary strategies, adapted from the game of football, in which ‘red cards’
and ‘yellow cards’ are being used to manage disruptive classroom behaviour (Rodda, 1999).
 Boys, Masculinity and Learner Identities 383

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