In a project concerned with how adolescents construct their self-identities, a group of 13- to 14-year-old boys living in suburban and rural communities in Sweden wrote about a future family life and about themselves as fathers. The narratives are seen as reflecting the boys' ways of exploring a male identity through their main character. In the stories analysed here the boys' writing connects to fellowship, equality and the transmitting of knowledge. The boys' taking on a fatherhood in their narratives gives them access to possibilities that are not theirs in their capacity as child, but at the same time they retain their freedom in being a child. We can say that they combine the advantages of boyhood and fatherhood.
Alanen, L.
(1994) `Gender and Generation: Feminism and the “Child Question”', in J. Qvortrup, M. Bardy, G. Sgritta and H. Wintersberger (eds) Childhood Matters: Social Theory, Practice and Politics, pp. 27-42. Aldershot: Avebury.
2.
Bjerrum Nielsen, H.
(1996) `The Magic Writing-pan. On Gender and Identity Work', Young, Nordic Journal of Youth Research4(3): 2-18.
3.
Bjurman, E.L.
(1996) `Sophie, Education and Love. A Young Bourgeois Girl in Denmark in the 1790s', Ethnologia Scandinavia26: 5-24.
4.
Brown, L.M.
and C. Gilligan (1992) Meeting at the Crossroads. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
Bruner, J.
(1987) `Life as Narrative', Social Research54(1): 11-32.
6.
Bruner, J.
(1990) `Culture and Human Development: A New Look', Human Development33: 344-355.
7.
Davies, B.
and C. Banks (1992) `The Gender Trap: A Feminist Poststructuralist Analysis of Primary School Children's Talk about Gender', Journal of Curriculum Studies24(1): 1-25.
8.
De Singly, F.
(1993) `The Social Construction of a New Parental Identity', report presented at the EU-conference `Fathers in Families Tomorrow', Copenhagen, 17-18 June, pp. 42-74.
9.
Gergen, K.
and M. Gergen (eds) (1984) Historical Social Psychology. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
10.
Gilligan, C.
, N. Lyons and T. Hanmer (eds) (1990) Making Connections. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Gillis, J. (1990) `Bringing Up Father: British Parental Identities, 1750-Present', unpublished manuscript, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.
12.
Goodnow, J.
and A. Collins (1990) Development According to Parents. The Nature Sources, and Consequences of Parents' Ideas. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
13.
Gullestad, M.
(1996) `Modernity, Self, and Childhood in the Analysis of Life Stories', in M. Gullestad (ed.) Imagined Childhoods. Self and Society in Autobiographical Accounts, pp. 1-39. Oslo: Scandinavia University Press.
14.
Hall, C.
(1985) `Private Persons versus Public Someones: Class, Gender and Politics in England, 1780-1850', in C. Steedman, C. Urwin and V. Walkerdine (eds) Language, Gender and Childhood, pp. 10-33. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
15.
Halldén, G.
(1991) `The Child as Project and the Child as Being: Parents' Ideas as Frames of Reference', Children and Society5(4): 334-346.
16.
Halldén, G.
(1994a) `Establishing Order: Small Girls Write about Family Life', Gender and Education6(1): 3-17.
17.
Halldén, G.
(1994b) `The Family - A Refuge from Demands or an Arena for the Exercise of Power and Control - Children's Fiction on their Future Families', in B. Mayal (ed.) Children's Childhoods Observed and Experienced, pp. 63-78. London: Falmer Press.
18.
Halldén, G. (in press a) `Competence and Connection; Gender and Generation in Boys' Narratives', Gender and Education.
19.
Halldén, G. (in press b) `To Be or Not to Be'. Absurd and Humouristic Descriptions as a Strategy to Avoid Idyllic Life Stories; Boys Write about Family Life.
20.
Hardyment, C.
(1983) Dream Babies, Child Care from Locke to Spock. London: Jonathan Cape.
21.
Hearn, J.
and D. Morgan (1990) Men, Masculinities and Social Theory. London: Unwin Hyman.
22.
Henrique, J.
, W. Hollway, C. Urwin, C. Venn and V. Walkerdine (eds) (1984) Changing the Subject. Psychology, Social Regulation and Subjectivity. London: Methuen.
23.
Hwang, P.
(1987) `The Changing Role of Swedish Fathers', in M. Lamb (ed.) The Father's Role - Cross Cultural Perspectives. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
24.
Jalmert, L.
(1995) `Restraints on Fatherhood', paper presented at the conference `The Cost of Being Mother, the Cost of Being Father', European University Institute, Florence, 23-24 March.
25.
Johnson, L.
(1993) The Modern Girl, Girlhood and Growing Up. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
26.
Jordan, E.
(1995) `Fighting Boys and Fantasy Play: The Construction of Masculinity in the Early Years of School', Gender and Education7(1): 69-86.
27.
Laqueur, T.
(1990) Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
28.
Laqueur, T.
(1992) `Facts of Fatherhood', in B. Thorne and M. Yalom (eds) Rethinking the Family, Some Feminist Questions, pp. 155-175. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
29.
Lieblich, A.
and R. Josselson (1994) Exploring Identity and Gender. The Narrative Study of Lives, Vol. 2. London: Sage.
30.
Mac an Ghaill, M.
(1994) The Making of Men, Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
31.
McKee, L.
and M. O'Brien (eds) (1982) The Father Figure. London: Tavistock.
32.
Martino, W.
(1995) `Deconstructing Masculinity in the English Classroom: A Site for Reconstituting Gendered Subjectivity', Gender and Education7(2): 205-220.
33.
Nilan, P.
(1995) `Making up Men', Gender and Education7(2): 175-187.
34.
Oakley, A.
(1994) `Women and Children First and Last: Parallels and Differences between Children's and Women's Studies', in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's Childhoods Observed and Experienced, pp. 13-32. London: Falmer Press.
35.
Porter, D.
(1992) Between Men and Feminism. London: Routledge.
36.
Ribbens, J.
(1994) Mothers and their Children. A Feminist Sociology of Childrearing. London: Sage.
37.
Rosenwald, G.C.
and R.L. Ochberg (eds) (1992) Storied Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
38.
Rutherford, J.
(1992) Men's Silences, Predicaments in Masculinities. London: Routledge.
39.
Segal. L.
(1990) Slow Motion, Changing Masculinities and Changing Men. London: Virago.
40.
Seidler, V.
(1994) Unreasonable Men, Masculinity and Social Theory. London: Routledge.
41.
Snarey, J.
(1993) How Fathers Care for the Next Generation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
42.
Steedman, C.
(1987) The Tidy House. Little Girls Writing. London: Virago.
43.
Steedman, C.
(1991) Landscape for a Good Woman, a Story of Two Lives. London: Virago.
44.
Taylor, J.
, C. Gilligan and A. Sullivan (1995) Between Voice and Silence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45.
Thorne, B.
(1993) Gender Play, Girls and Boys in School. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
46.
Urwin, C.
(1985) `Constructing Motherhood: The Persuasion/Pursuance?/of Normal Development', in C. Steedman, C. Urwin and V. Walkerdine (eds) Language, Gender and Childhood, pp. 164-202. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
47.
Vik Kleven, K.
(1993) `Deadly Earnest of Post-modern Irony: New Gender Clashes?', Young, Nordic Journal of Youth Research1(4): 40-59.
48.
Walkerdine, V.
(1990) Schoolgirl Fictions. London: Virago.
49.
Walkerdine, V.
(1997) Daddy's Girl: Young Girls and Popular Culture. London: Macmillan.
50.
Winnicott, D. W.
(1971) Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock.
51.
Wolfenstein, M.
(1955) `Fun Morality: An Analysis of Recent American Childtraining Literature', in M. Mead and M. Wolfenstein (eds) Childhood in Contemporary Cultures, pp. 168-178. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
