Schools, Violence, Masculinities and Privilege

Abstract

This chapter explores the practices of violence performed amongst boys in schools. Whilst most boys are not violent, violent practices performed by some boys serve as a means to privilege men and boys, in relation to women and girls, within the current gender order. Connell (1987, p. 98) has referred to the gender order as the historical set of relations between men and women that construct normalised definitions of masculinity and femininity. Violence is integral to maintaining the current gender order. The normalisation of boys’ capacities for violence, especially against girls and women, and its contribution to a gender order that favours the interests of men and boys have been well documented by feminist literature (see, e.g., Bhana, 2006; Jones, 1985; Leach & Mitchell, 2006; Mahony, 1989; Robinson, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c). However, it is important to acknowledge that not all men and boys benefit equally from this state of affairs. Boys’ violent practices, and the fear associated with them, also work to shore up the privileges of particular boys (and men). In this chapter there is an exploration of how violence is implicated within anti-schoolwork cultures in ways that can disadvantage working-class boys academically and of how violence within an elite school is used to maintain meritocratic justifications of privilege. However, the chapter also demonstrates the commonalities within these different communities relating to the ways in which homophobic discourses work to privilege heterosexist constructions of masculinity. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the ways in which violence is a presence in the various ways in which many boys ‘survive’ schooling.