cusser and the cussee, some developed into nastier, protracted affairs which extended
over a period of days. Although some pupils were able to ‘laugh it off’, some of these
cusses were calculatingly and gratuitously designed to hurt and provoke a reaction; they
have a direct link to bullying (Olweus, 1993; Sharp & Smith, 1994) and it was these types
which sometimes ended up in a fight.
In their study into racism in the secondary school, Kelly & Cohn (1988) found that the
single worst form of name calling concerned ‘the family’, or more accurately, ‘the
mother’. This was the same at Peterfield, and although I did not come across a single
example of racist cussing, most of the serious cusses had misogynist undertones and
began with: ‘Your mum....’ which was a highly personalised attack on identity. Two
girls told me that CT’s favourite expression was, ‘Your mum^’ , and although it could
still be a more straightforward type of direct insult such as: ‘Your mum’s belt is the size
of the equator,’ many invariably, concerned sexual mores/appetites; for example: ‘Your
mum has felt more knobs than the gasman.’ Kehily & Nayak (1997, p. 73) argue that the
reference to a boy’s mother exploits ‘the contradictory “private” emotions of maternal
affection and the public disavowal of the “feminine”,’ where males are positioned as
some kind of moral guardians of their mother’s (and girlfriends and sisters) sexual
reputations.
Image/fashion
Another resource that some pupils were able to use to achieve peer group prestige/status
was the wearing of fashionable clothes and trainers displaying their signifying logos and
brand names (Swain, 2002b). Many of these opportunities depend upon both the official
approach and policies on school uniform in each school and the amount of parental
support, and while this was one of the top ways of gaining recognition at Westmoor
Abbey, this option was restricted at Petersfield and almost totally closed at Highwoods.
Being an independent school, Highwoods was associated with the long, historical public-
school tradition of wearing school uniform. The policy was rigorously and stringently
applied, and pupils were consistently under surveillance and picked up on the most trivial
transgression such as having a top button undone. At Petersfield, although the wearing of
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