interchangeable basis. A boy could have a boff shirt, boff trousers or boff shoes, which
usually meant that anything ‘smart’ was equated with conforming to the school’s values
and authority. ‘Gay’ basically connoted ‘naff’ or awful, and this even included his choice
of shoe:
Jimmy: Some people say that Tom has got gay trainers because they’re old
Tom: These are old but I’m getting new ones.
Cultural knowledge
In contrast to recent research by Renold (2001) set in the junior school, and Frosh et al.
(2002) in the secondary school, it was perfectly possible at Highwoods and Petersfield to
be visibly seen working hard and achieving high grades without being victimised.
However, although some boys were admired for their intellectual abilities, this did not
bring them any significant amount of veneration within the peer group. But whereas it
had a neutral effect on status at Petersfield and Highwoods, it often had an adverse effect
at Westmoor Abbey where learning in general was feminised and associated with
conforming to the formal school culture. It was being able to talk knowledgeably about
culturally celebrated topics such as football (the teams, the star players, the scores,
specific matches, the rules and so on), being familiar with the latest computer games
(such as PlayStation), and having knowledge of computer programming, that brought
prestige and popularity within the peer group hierarchy. Pollard (1985) argues that
competence is one of the most effective ways off achieving status, and this cultural
knowledge added up to a kind of savoir faire, which Adler & Adler (1998, p. 42) refer to
as a pupil’s ‘sophistication in social and interpersonal skills’. The corollary of this was
that a deficiency of knowledge, either in the latest culturally-hot topics, or about, say the
technical language of football, could render a boy silent and be used as a marker of
difference. For example, Sam at Westmoor Abbey was derogated because he did not
understand the off-side rule in football, and neither he nor his friend Simon knew the
names or descriptions of some of the main characters in South Park, a popular cartoon
programme on television at the time. By the end of the junior school, many boys are in
the process of disengaging from their childhood past (Harris, 1998). It is therefore also
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