Feminisation and Schooling: Re-Masculinisation,Gendered Reflexivity and Boyness

Abstract

Across media and academic accounts in western societies there is much talk of an implosion of the modernist gender order. One way of capturing this shift is through the deployment of the concept of feminisation and an accompanying masculinity crisis. This paper draws upon empirical work in a specific context, that of the contemporary English schooling of boys. We critically explore the different meanings ascribed to the notion of feminisation. In exploring the changing labour process of teaching, we pose the suggestion of its remasculinisation. Having considered this broader picture, we focus on the meanings that circulate through teaching and more specifically address the question through a consideration of the disconnection of gendered styles from sexed bodies. In the final section this leads to the exploration of the putative ‘crisis of boys' by addressing the dynamic cultural inter connections between the categories of age and gender.