Needing to be ‘in the know’: strategies of subordination used by 10-11 year old school boys

The forms of discrimination worked at both the interpersonal and the group level. The
usual defamatory aspersions included ‘goody-goody’ (Highwoods), ‘teacher’s pet’
(Highwoods and Petersfield) and ‘boff’ (Westmoor Abbey) which were used to equate
with too-close a conformity with the formal school regime; while ‘wimp’, ‘sissy’, and
particularly ‘girl’ and ‘gay’ were used across all three schools as the main terms of abuse
to confirm masculinity as heterosexual, and, to position boys as different and attack their
identity. Much of these insults were insidious and occurred out of teachers’ earshot:
moreover, telling a teacher inevitably exacerbated the situation, and boys would find
themselves subjected to further, and more intense, levels of abuse. There is a fuller
discussion of homophobia at the end of the paper. This next section considers
subordinated forms of masculinity at each of the three schools in turn.

Highwoods

It soon emerged that there were only two boys at Highwoods who were isolated from the
rest of their peer milieu, and who were regularly subordinated in the sense that they were
actively, and almost continually, derogated and pursued: Timothy from 6J and Daniel
from 6B. Although they did not comply in their subordination, they found it too
powerful to effectively resist. What made the hegemonic agenda of competitive
sport/games so powerful at this school was the fact that it was backed and, indeed

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