QUESTIONING MASCULINITIES: INTERROGATING BOYS’ CAPACITIES FOR SELF-PROBLEMATIZATION IN SCHOOLS

Oct 15, 2026

Analyzes how adolescent boys in Australia and North America understand and can interrogate gender normalization in school life. The study contrasts boys’ perspectives with public media debates driven by moral panic and essentializing claims about boys’ education, including calls for male teachers, gender-differentiated curricula, and single-sex classes. It argues that boys’ capacities for self-problematization and critical engagement can support counter-hegemonic school practices to challenge gender oppression.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction and Aim

Critique of Public Media Debates on Boys’ Education

Boys’ Voices and Counter-Hegemonic Possibilities

Masculinities, School Norms, and Self-Problematization

QUESTIONING MASCULINITIES: INTERROGATING BOYS’ CAPACITIES FOR SELF‐ PROBLEMATIZATION IN SCHOOLS Michael Kehler & Wayne Martino The University of Western Ontario In drawing on selected interviews with adolescent boys from both Australia and North America, we present an analysis of boys’ own capacities for interrogating gender normalisation in their school lives. We set this analysis against a critique of the public media debates about boys’ education, which continue to be fuelled by amoral panic about the status of boys as the new disadvantaged. Our aim is to raise questions about boys’ existing capacities for problematizing social relations of masculinity and how these might be mobilized in schools to support a counter‐ hegemonic practice committed to interrogating gender oppression. Key words: gender reform, boys’education, masculinities, normalization À partir d’un choix d’entrevues effectuées auprès d’adolescents venant de l’Australie et de l’Amérique du Nord, les auteurs présentent une analyse des capacités de ces garçons de remettre en question la normalisation en fonction des sexes dans leur viescolaire. Les auteurs opposent cette analyse à une critique des débats dans les médias sur l’éducation des garçons, lesquels continuent à être alimentés par une panique morale au sujet du statut des garçons considérés comme les nouveaux défavorisés. L’objectif visé est de soulever des questions sur les capacités des garçons de problématiser les relations sociales masculines et de voir comment ces aptitudes pourraient être mobilisées dans les écoles pour appuyer une démarche antihégémonique visant à remettre en question l’oppression basée sur le sexe. Mots clés : réforme et sexes, éducation des garçons, masculinités, normalisation _________________ CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 30, 1 (2007): 90‐112 Within the context of moral panic and feminist backlash about boys’education, the dominant discourse has been one that relies on essentializing differences between boys and girls to instigating gender and pedagogical reform in schools1 (see Arnot & Miles, 2005; Foster, Kimmel, & Skelton, 2001; Froese‐Germaine, 2004; Martino, Mills, & Lingard, 2004; Titus, 2004; Weaver‐Hightower, 2003 for a critique of these debates) . This context has involved resorting to calls for more male teachers, a boy friendly curriculum that caters more to boys’ learning styles, and single sex classes as reform initiatives designed to counteract the feminisation of schooling and its supposed detrimental impact on boys’ failing and flailing masculinities. For example, Hoff‐Sommers (2000) claims that much of the feminist inspired gender reform in schools is based on denying the nature of boys by inciting them to be more like girls which ultimately diminishes their masculinity. Glaringly absent from these debates, however, are the perspectives of boys themselves. In this article, therefore, our aim is to present a more nuanced analysis of masculinities and schooling than that offered within the context of these debates by including the voices of adolescent boys who raise questions about the constraints and limits of conventional masculinities (see also Burgess, Park, & Robinson, 2004; Kehler, 2004; Kehler, Davison, & Frank, 2005; Martino & Pallotta‐Chiarolli, 2003) . In drawing on interviews with seven adolescent boys from Australia (n = 3) and the United States (n = 4), our aim is to complicate the powerful tendency to homogenize and essentialize masculinity within the context of these debates about the boys (see Gurian, 2001) . We use their voices to raise questions about the possibility of engaging boys in a counter‐hegemonic practice that is committed to interrogating the limits of normalizing discourses through which they are constituted as gendered subjects. This discussion is set against the calls for gender reform within the context of debates about boys’ education, the popular media, and educational policy (see Lingard, 2003; Martino, Mill

FAQs

What is the primary aim of the article?

To analyze adolescent boys’ own capacities for interrogating gender normalization in their school lives and to consider how these capacities could be mobilized in schools for counter-hegemonic practice.

How does the article frame public debates about boys’ education?

It critiques debates fueled by moral panic and feminist backlash, noting that they often essentialize differences between boys and girls and largely omit boys’ perspectives.

What does the article suggest about boys’ ability to discuss gender socialization?

It argues the issue is not a lack of vocabulary, but rather how schools institutionalize hegemonic heterosexual masculinity in ways that deny and silence critical discourses.

Oct 15, 2026

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