Gilbert (1998) site four key areas of ‘masculinising practices’: management and
policy/organisational practices, including discipline; teacher and pupil relations; the
curriculum; and sport/games. Thus we can see that the school’s role in the formation of
masculinity needs to be understood in two ways, for as well as providing the setting and
physical space in which the embodied actions and agencies of pupils and adults takes
place, its own structures and practices are also involved as an institutional agent which
produce these ‘masculinising practices’.
The power of the peer group and the need to gain status
To this list of masculinising practices we also need to add pupil-to-pupil relations for
pupils are also agents of masculinity. The closed cultural circle of the peer group has
become increasingly recognised as a key area of influence in masculinity making, and
there are constant pressures on individuals to perform and behave to the expected group
norms (see, for example, Pollard, 1985; Woods, 1990; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Kenway et
al., 1997; Adler & Adler, 1998; Connolly, 1998; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998; Harris, 1998;
Connell, 2000). Each peer group has its own cultural identity which can be said to refer
to a ‘way of life’ (Dubbs & Whitney, 1980, p. 27) with shared values and interests,
furnishing boys with a series of collective meanings of what it is to be a boy. Harris
(1998) argues that the peer group actually has more influence on children than their
parents in the formation of their identity, of who they are now, and who they will
become, and is the main conduit by which cultures are passed from one generation to
another. Thus, the construction of masculinity is primarily a collective enterprise, and it
is the peer group, rather than individual boys, which are the main bearers of gender
definitions (Connell, 2000; Lesko, 2000).
For many pupils, the safest position to aim for in the formal school culture is to be
‘average’, while in the informal pupil culture it is to be the ‘same as the others’ for this
provides a certain protection from teasing and, perhaps, even subordination (Gordon et
al., 2000). In fact, it is a paradox that while pupils attempt to construct their own
‘individual’ identity, no-one aspires to be, or can afford to be, too different, and they are