class. One of the favourite games at Westmoor Abbey was called Predator and the object
was to catch an opponent and then hold them down for a period of 10 seconds.
Wrestling-type games also occurred at Petersfield, although here they needed to be a
covert activity as they had also been banned by Mrs Flowers.
Acting tough and ‘hard’
The attribute of physicality also appeared in other forms apart from games and sport. For
instance, there were some boys who deliberately cultivated aggressive, ‘macho’ forms of
behaviour, which they saw as a way of establishing their masculine authority. Toughness
seemed to characterise much of their attitude and relations towards other boys, though
this was scarcely ever directed at girls. Most of the data in this section comes from
Westmoor Abbey, as this was the school where acting tough and/or ‘hard’ (including
fighting) was one of the main ways of procuring status, and a strategy very much open to
any boy who had the physical resources to back it up. Even threatening behaviour, such
as intentional pushing/shoving, was a limited option at the other two schools, especially
at Highwoods where a boy would be more likely to damage his reputation rather than
enhance it if he had to resort to using physical coercion. Although still a limited option at
Petersfield, one of the leading boys known as CT had established his status in the group
by acting tough. His authority was underwritten and backed up with displays of violence
and intimidation, and although this did not bring him popularity, it earned him a certain
amount of wary respect, and few boys were prepared to take the chance of being left on
the ‘outside’. Moreover, there were also a few other boys in the peer group who set out
to invoke the strategy of fighting in an attempt to gain peer group acceptance and to
prove their ‘macho’ credentials. Connell’s (1995, 1996) research into aggressive
behaviour suggests that fighting is predominantly carried out by boys of poorer academic
performance. However, while this may have applied to CT (and some of the boys at
Westmoor Abbey), other boys at Petersfield were high academic achievers which
suggests that there is no simple correlation.
Although the vast majority of the tough boys were to be found at Westmoor Abbey
where, it could be argued, there was a relation to working class patterns of cultural
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