Issues of power, masculinity, and gender justice : Sally's story of teaching boys

No Thumbnail Available
File version
Author(s)
Keddie, Amanda
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2007
Size
File type(s)
Location
License
Abstract

Despite calls for a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and equity that recognizes how broader relations of gender and power continue to produce injustices for many females, essentialized accounts expressing concern about boys' poor educational performance remain the most common refrain in dominant equity discourses across Western contexts. This common refrain characteristic of current large scale gender reforms, such as Australia's parliamentary inquiry into the education of boys, Boys: Getting it right, is driven by a standards rather than social justice focus and thus creates silences around issues of gender injustice, power, and constructions of hegemonic masculinity. In this paper, I present "Sally's" story as a disruption of these silences. Sally is a young English teacher at "Penfolds College", an all boys Catholic school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). Her story, in illustrating how particular boys draw on broader discourses of masculinity to sexually harass and intimidate her, highlights the inadequacies of dominant public and policy discourse in terms of its failure to locate boys' educational issues within broader contexts of inequitable gender relations.

Journal Title

Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

28

Issue

1

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified

Education

Studies in Human Society

Persistent link to this record
Citation
Collections