[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-152127-en":3,"doc-seo-152127-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},152127,8796095461610,"Oliver","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c",8,"Research & Report","Tomboys and girly-girls - embodied femininities in primary schools - Paper summary","The paper examines how children aged nine to eleven, especially girls, co-construct tomboy and girly-girl identities as opposing positions. Using one year of empirical data from two London primary schools, it traces how physical self-presentation—how children dress, move, and present their bodies—supports others’ attribution of identity. Findings indicate that oppositional framing limits girls’ ability to adopt more flexible femininities, though identity shifts can occur across time and places as puberty approaches.","Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools  \nCarrie Paechter􀀍  \nGoldsmiths, University of London  \nThis paper is about how nine to eleven year old children, particularly girls, coconstruct tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions. The paper sits within a theoretical framework in which I understand individual and collective masculinities and femininities as ways of ‘doing man/woman’ or ‘doing boy/girl’ that are constructed within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice.  \nEmpirical data come from a one-year study of tomboy identities within two London primary schools. The paper explores the contrasting identities of tomboy and girlygirl, how they are constructed by the children, and how this changes as they approach puberty. The findings suggest that the oppositional construction of these identities makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though it is possible to switch between tomboy and girly-girl identities at different times and places.  \nKey words: Six  \nIntroduction  \nIt is well established that the body and how it is produced is central to identity, in children as well as in adults (Butler, 1993; Connell, 2002; Davies, 2003; Foucault, 1984; Frank, 1991; Gatens, 1992, 1996; Grosz, 1994, 1999; Jackson, 2006; Kelly, Pomerantz, & Currie, 2005; Mauss, 1973/1935; Renold, 2005; Satina & Hultgren, 2001; Shilling, C., 1993, 2005; West & Zimmerman, 1987; Young, 2005) . At the same time, however, children’s embodiment in the schooling context has been relatively ignored (Paechter, 2006c), with the majority of researchers paying little attention to children’s bodies and how they understand and use them. In this largely data-focused paper I consider how girls use physical self-presentation, in terms of how they dress, move and generally comport themselves, as part of their selfconstruction as tomboys or girly-girls. In particular I focus on the oppositional coconstruction of such identities, making more fluidly blended identities hard to take up. This results in, at best, identities that shift between tomboy and girly-girl, being blended only within the construction ‘a bit tomboy’, which is how girls represent the experience of moving between tomboy and girly-girl identities over time.  \nFemininities (and masculinities) are of course constructed and performed in ways that include ways of being, attitudes and behaviours, only some of which directly involve the use of the body. What I want to focus on here, however, is the  \n􀀍 Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London SE14  \n6NW, UK. Email: [c.paechter@gold.ac.uk](c.paechter@gold.ac.uk)  \nways in which girls’ bodies are used and adorned in order to project a whole range of other attributes, which are then used by others to assign a tomboy or girly-girl identity. This is partly because, in the research on which paper is based, one way we identified which girls we should focus on was that they were considered to be tomboys by other children. This identification was largely based on physical manifestations, which in some cases included how girls dressed, talked, fought, and played, although some other attributes were also included by some children. Attributions of tomboy or girly-girl identities are made by inference from public manifestations and projections which are then read by others: in this case, other children. Furthermore, girls claiming tomboy identities usually made good their claims by reference to how they managed their bodies, such as always having messy hair, or never wearing skirts, contrasting this with girly-girl physical performances which involved dyeing one’s hair or wearing make-up. Embodiment is, in consequence, particularly salient to the co-construction of tomboy and girly-girl identities. Nevertheless, in my discussion below, I include some examples in which the body features less strongly, in order to give a fully rounded account. I als","cbCainUJdORXg64C","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainUJdORXg64C","pdf",75190,1,15,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Embodiment and identity in schooling\n## Research focus and data sources\n## Outline of the study","[{\"question\":\"What identities does the paper focus on?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses on tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions co-constructed by children.\"},{\"question\":\"How is identity attributed in the study?\",\"answer\":\"Identity is inferred from children’s public manifestations and physical self-presentation, such as clothing, hair, movement, and behaviors.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the findings suggest about flexibility in femininities?\",\"answer\":\"Oppositional construction makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though switching between identities can happen in different times and places.\"}]","Tomboys and girly-girls - embodied femininities in primary schools - Paper summary | PDF",1787856201,38,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"tomboys-and-girly-girls-embodied-femininities-in-primary-schools-paper-summary","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,54,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/tomboys-and-girly-girls-embodied-femininities-in-primary-schools-paper-summary/152127/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-27",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What identities does the paper focus on?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"It focuses on tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions co-constructed by children.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How is identity attributed in the study?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Identity is inferred from children’s public manifestations and physical self-presentation, such as clothing, hair, movement, and behaviors.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What do the findings suggest about flexibility in femininities?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Oppositional construction makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though switching between identities can happen in different times and places.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]