part of his junior career, but it is also important to make the point that Luke’s use
violence is connected to power and status, and is not the result of any inherent individual
pathology in his masculine makeup (Moon, 1992).
However, the majority of the boys tried to keep away from fighting. Although a boy
could also show how tough he was by publicly defying adult authority, showing an
insouciant ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude, and/or by challenging the rules and receiving
more disciplinary actions than others, many boys were negotiating their way between the
two school cultures, and did not want to run the risk of getting into serious trouble.
However, sometimes their options became constricted, and few boys were prepared to
chance peer ridicule by ducking out of a direct challenge. This was particularly true if it
came from a boy in a younger age group.
Tom: You have to have a fight with someone, you can’t walk away
otherwise you’ll be taken the micky out of
If a boy wanted to maintain his position of status in the peer group he had to learn to
stand up and look after himself in the face of verbal threats and physical intimidation. In
fact, not standing up for oneself was seen as a social sin and a matter of individual
honour, and many boys told me that their parents had told them to ‘sort things out for
themselves’ by hitting back, rather than by telling a teacher. At one point in the
following conversation, Chris asks me to confirm the practice of standing up for yourself
and hitting back, a point which I studiously choose to ignore. Although using the help of
an elder sibling or relative was not nearly as bad as telling a teacher, and may have been
an effective short term tactic, a boy would usually pay the price for this in the long run.
Robert: Ryan needs to toughen up a bit
JS: Ryan does?
Tom: He lets himself get pushed around and then he don’t fight back
Robert: He got pushed into a bush by a Year 5, right it was Sam, and he
goes, ‘Stop it’ ‘cos Sam was starting calling him names, and then
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