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Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School pp 113–129Cite as

‘Voetsek!’ Boys, Violence, and the Gendered Negotiation of Masculinity

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Part of the book series: Perspectives on Children and Young People ((PCYP))

Abstract

By the time boys begin attending primary school they have already embarked on the lifelong process of acquiring and constructing their masculine identities. Masculine identities in KwaDabeka School reach back in time into the family, and in turn the social location of these families plays a major part in the early processes through which masculinities are formed. Emerging from chronically poor contexts where parents are unemployed and where most households get their income through state support grants, boys’ investment in patterns of violent masculinity are underwritten by the legacies of apartheid, chronic food shortage, fractured families and deep poverty. Violent social relations are associated with the economic and cultural circumstances. Underwritten by major structural inequalities and the legacies of apartheid, the township location provides contextual clarification of boys’ violence and the social construction of masculinity. The chapter focuses on how boys negotiate and interpret the parameters of what teachers described in the previous chapter as the ‘survival of the fittest’. The ways in which masculinities are enacted using violence is of central concern.

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  1. School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Deevia Bhana

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  1. Deevia Bhana
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Correspondence to Deevia Bhana .

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Bhana, D. (2016). ‘Voetsek!’ Boys, Violence, and the Gendered Negotiation of Masculinity. In: Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School. Perspectives on Children and Young People. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2239-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2239-5_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2238-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2239-5

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