The resources and strategies that 10-11 year old boys use to construct masculinities in the school setting

as a source for developing and reinforcing teacher-pupil relationships and many of the
laughs were with teachers rather than against them.

In all three schools the amount of specific joke telling was negligible, but although some
groups told me that they never told jokes, they were still a device that could be used to
affect a performance, and as Paddy told me at Highwoods, ‘if you have jokes, that means
you have got a bit of a bonus’. However, humour had much more to do with acting and
being funny. Luke was generally regarded as being the funniest boy in the class at
Westmoor Abbey, and like many at this school, he used humour to relieve boredom and
to gain himself attention, but also on other occasions, as a means of trying to cover up
and deflect attention away from the fact that he was experiencing frustration and having
difficulties with his work.

At Petersfield, there was also a particular type of humour called cussing (Swain,2002a).
Although the term was virtually unheard off at the other two schools, at Petersfield it was
a ubiquitous phenomenon amongst the upper school boys, and a major device of gaining
status/prestige, and positioning others in the masculine peer group hierarchy. It was used
at the school as a generic term for a kind of face-to-face verbal interaction covering
anything from friendly playing and teasing, to highly personalised attacks. The cussing
at Petersfield took many different forms: it could be of a short or protracted duration,
involve friendly teasing or hostile persecution, be a private affair between two
individuals, or be a public exhibition involving whole groups. Essentially, it was a verbal
face-to-face interaction of name-calling based on displays of wit.

Cusses were supposed to be exemplars of wit which appeared to abrogate the need to be
able to tell good jokes. People were certainly admired for cussing within the peer group,
and the ability to ‘hold your own’ in a slanging match was seen as an important way of
gaining and maintaining status. Cusses often lasted for about half-a-dozen exchanges
before one party either got bored or ran out of cusses to say; in some senses they were
rather like a tennis match with each ‘player’ taking turns to make a ‘hit’. Although most
cussing ‘matches’ lasted no more than a minute, and were often enjoyed by both the

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