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

Calvin:

Yeah/

Derek:

He agrees

JS:

Does he get called a girl?

Sinclair:

Yeah, he doesn’t sort of go, ‘Oh I’m not a girl,’ he just goes, ‘Ok’

Calvin:

Yeah, and sometimes he admits he’s a girl

JS:

Does he?

Derek:

Yeah, and we.../

Sinclair:

Well I think he’s just sort of like joking actually/

Derek:

Yeah probably...he was born in the [inaudible]

Calvin:

And he’s very prudish and/

JS:

What do you mean, prudish?

Calvin:

When he’s at swimming, he always goes in the corner, he doesn’t
like to be with anyone

Derek:

He’s quite scared of stuff as well, like scared of the ball in rugby/

Sinclair:

Yeah I remember in football, there were two people running for the
ball and Timmy sort of like backed away

Derek:

And when the ball is coming at him [in rugby] he just drops it and/

Sinclair:

Yeah he can’t kick it you know [ .. ], it was painful to watch
yesterday

Calvin:

He’s like a boy yeah, he’s like.../

Sinclair:

He’s a boy but he, like, wants to be a girl

Calvin:

Well he doesn’t want to be, I think like, he backs away from
everything, and he’s like...if someone has a go at us...if someone
pushes us we’ll push them back, this is a simple way of saying it: if
someone pushes us, we’ll push them back

JS:

You stick up for yourselves/

Calvin:

Yeah. Timmy, if someone pushed him, he goes and tells the
teacher or/

Derek:

He gets scared/

Calvin:

He gets scared

Derek:

He cries a bit I think/