This article was downloaded by:[Goldsmiths College Library]
On: 19 March 2008
Access Details: [subscription number 789285396]
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Race Ethnicity and Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713443511
Mentors and Role Models: masculinity and the
educational 'underachievement' of young
Afro-Caribbean males
Pamela Odih
Online Publication Date: 01 March 2002
To cite this Article: Odih, Pamela (2002) 'Mentors and Role Models: masculinity and
the educational 'underachievement' of young Afro-Caribbean males', Race Ethnicity
and Education, 5:1, 91 - 105
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/13613320120117216
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613320120117216
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,
re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be
complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be
independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or
arising out of the use of this material.
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Race Ethnicity and Education, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2002
Mentors and Role Models: masculinity
and the educational ‘underachievement’ of
young Afro-Caribbean males
PAMELA ODIH
Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross London
SE14 6UP, UK
ABSTRACT In September 1999, the British Government embarked on its £33 million
mentoring programme. Learning mentors have been awarded the task of helping secondary
pupils to overcome barriers to individual learning. These measures coincide with increasing
calls within the black community and among anti-feminist male activists for the provision
of male role models to remedy the current underachievement of male students. In New
Labour’s educational discourse, gender and racial inequality are de!ned as problems of
ineffectiveness, standards and performance. For anti-feminist male activists, the prevalence
of female teachers, ‘soft’ pedagogic practices and matriarchal families are the prime cause
for the underachievement of boys. Neither discourse recognises the dynamic and relational
properties of gender and the complex, contradictory relations between discourses of masculine
and feminine identity. More insidiously, both discourses provide conditions for the promotion and legitimation of hegemonic forms of masculine identity. Writers have variously
identi!ed how misogyny and homophobia are often deployed in the construction of
hegemonic heterosexual masculinities. Part of the problem resides with a lack of socially
informed research providing critical analysis of mentoring practices and the forms of
masculine subjectivity which are their condition and outcome. Conversely, this article
examines the socio-historical, political and cultural processes involved in the interplay
between mentoring, ethnicity and the production of masculine identities .
Introduction
In September 1999, the British Government embarked on its £33 million mentoring
programme (currently operating in 25 local education authority [LEA] secondary
schools). In September 2000, Learning Mentors [1] will be introduced in a further
21 LEAs (as well as being piloted in some primary schools). Mentoring has also
been accredited a principal role in the Government’s ‘New Deal’ initiatives, with, for
example, the development of short-term mentoring relationships amongst unemployed youths seeking vocational advice and guidance. More signi!cantly ‘mentoring’ is pivotal to the Government’s strategies with regard to the educational
underachievement of boys (Department for Education and Employment [DfEE],
ISSN 1361-3324 print; 1470-109X online/02/010091-15 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/13613320120117216
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
92
P. Odih
2000b) and ethnic minorities (Of!ce for Standards in Education [OFSTED], 1999,
DfEE, 2000a). In a recent report entitled Lets Make Learning Cool, the DfEE
(2000c) identi!es the following strategic measures directed at current levels of
underachievement amongst male pupils:
creating a culture where it’s ‘cool to succeed’; regular one-to-one interviews between pupils and tutors; providing mentoring for under-achieving
pupils; stamping out signs of a macho anti-school culture; celebrating
success; analysing results in detail and setting individual targets.
Two aspects of this excerpt are of particular signi!cance to this article. The !rst
relates to the increasing assimilation of male educational ‘underachievement’ into
technicist discourses promoting market effectivity, ‘excellence’ and ‘standards’.
Clear parallels exist between New Right attempts towards the marketisation of
education (Ball, 1990) and New Labour’s micro-educational reforms (Chitty,
1999). Both assume well-managed schools, coupled with pupil self-motivation, to
ameliorate inequalities of race and gender as individuals better themselves through
education (Halsey et al., 1999). To New Labour modernisers, social justice (i.e. the
inclusion of the excluded through a skills revolution) is the principal basis for
economic ef!ciency (Driver & Martell, 1998), whereby the renewed emphasis on
equality of access is accredited with economic advantages ‘insofar as reincorporating
groups is likely to make them better off’ (Driver & Martell, 1998, p. 274). The
problem of inequality is (re)constituted here as a problem of individual and group
success or failure to navigate the plethora of reskilling and training opportunities
which would enable the socially excluded to achieve the status of socially and
!nancially responsible citizens (Driver & Martell, 1998). Mentoring emerges within
this context as cost-effective ‘cultural mediators’ providing de!cient groups with the
cultural resources necessary to capitalise on the opportunities presented by market
competition. The inextricable links between current mentoring initiatives, market
forces and equality of opportunity are evident in the following quotation, derived
from the DfEE’s (2001, p. 31) Transforming Secondary Education report:
Young people need support and encouragement from adults in the community as well as from their teachers. Beyond the school day and school
gates there are wonderful opportunities for experts from across society to
support schools and to offer young people a wide range of role models and
a rich diet of opportunities. Only when !rst rate schooling is combined
with these wider opportunities can we be sure that each young person will
make a successful transition from school student to lifelong learner.
In effect, schools can compensate for society through ever-rising standards and
individual motivation inspired by ‘expert … role models’. Moreover, the market ‘is
open to all to enter as the reward of individual effort and virtue’ (Askew & Carnell,
1998, p. 62). The consequences of this for addressing inequality at school are highly
signi!cant. Connell (1990, p. 532) draws our attention to the state as ‘an active
player in gender politics’. He further argues the state to be a signi!cant vehicle for
both ‘sexual and gender oppression and regulation’. Bourne (1998) describes how
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
93
‘the language of the market de!nes some children as wastage’, citing the high
incidence of exclusions from school experienced by ethnic minorities as but a mere
outcome of ‘this market-led strategy’. This article resonates with a growing disquiet
amongst feminist and black educationalists with regard to the unproblematic application of individualistic , technicist models of mentoring as resolutions to present
levels of underachievement amongst Afro-Caribbean males. The article seeks to alert
attention to the production of hegemonic masculinities in and through these mentoring practices.
An additional objective of this article is to identify mentoring as facilitating the
increased surveillance and regulation of Afro-Caribbean males. Numerous references have been made to Foucault by educationalists interested in questions of
social control and the exercise of power at school (e.g. Hoskin, 1979; Walkerdine,
1984; Ball, 1990). Foucault’s uppermost concern is with the ‘subject’ and its
constitution through modern discourses of power/knowledge. In Discipline and
Punish, Foucault (1979) notes a shift in technologies of power from the violent
inscriptions by the ‘sovereign’ upon the body of the ‘subject’ to disciplinary networks
which ‘invest the body, sexuality, the family, kinship, knowledge, technology and so
forth’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 122). In Discipline and Punish, Foucault (1979) also makes
direct reference to the school as a disciplinary institution, i.e. an institutions to
which disciplinary power has been or is exercised. Marshall (1990, p. 15), following
Foucault, describes how:
within such institutions knowledge has been developed about people, and
their behaviour, attitudes, and self-knowledge have been developed, re!ned
and used to shape individuals. These discourses and practices have not
only been used to change us in various ways but are also used to legitimate
such changes, as the knowledge gained is deemed to be true.
Discipline serves to de!ne individuals , and then through hierarchical observations
and supervision subjects them to surveillance. It does this through keeping !les on
individuals , recording their ‘progress’ through assessments, evaluations and examinations, and by judging them one against another and training those who do not
measure up to a comparative standard. ‘Discipline then, operates differently and
precisely on bodies…. Discipline ‘makes’ individuals; it is the speci!c technique of
a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise’
(Foucault, 1979, p. 70). Clear parallels exist here between disciplinary technologies
and mentoring practices, whereby the actions of youths come to be monitored,
documented and structured by experts unceasingly intent on problematising the
nature of youth and family behaviour. The knowledge developed through this
exercise of power is used in the exercise of power to produce what Foucault
describes as being normalised individuals ; that is the regulation of youthful identities
conceived as a meta-narrative of risk ‘for’ and ‘of’ the youth (Kelly, 2000). Whilst
mentoring practices aim to produce selves who are personally autonomous, their
techniques of surveillance and classi!cation have the effect of normalising selves and
constituting often highly problematic forms of gendered subjectivity.
94
P. Odih
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
The Subject of Mentoring
Full data on the intersection of ‘race’, social class and gender in national patterns of
educational achievement remain unavailable; however, ethnic monitoring conducted
by LEAs reveals disturbing patterns of underachievement by Afro-Caribbean males
[2] (see also Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). Whilst underrepresented amongst 16 yearolds obtaining !ve or more higher grade General Certi!cate of Secondary Education
examinations (GCSEs), Afro-Caribbean males are four times more likely to be
permanently excluded from school than their white peers (DfEE 1999 [3]). Responses amongst black educationalists (Smink 1990; Benioff, 1997) and practitioners (Roberts & Singh 1997) focus almost exclusively on creating ‘culturally
authentic’ learning practices geared at constituting positive black male identities.
Often translated into ‘mentoring’ and job-training programmes (e.g. Kwesi project,
ASELU, Chance UK [4]), these practices seek to avoid the cultural deprivation
premise of previous compensatory schemes (Riesman, 1962). Chance UK, for
example, de!nes its aims as follows: ‘build up a child’s con!dence and promote a
sense of responsibility, independence and active learning’ (Roberts & Singh, 1997,
p. 2). Pivotal to this objective is the provision of trained mentors for ‘vulnerable’
primary school children (aged 5–11). ‘Strong’, trusting relations with mentees
facilitate the use of ‘solution-focused measures’ designed to ‘change problem behaviour by teaching life skills, promoting active learning, personal responsibility and self
discipline and encouraging independence’ (Roberts & Singh, 1997; p. 1). Black-led
projects organised under the Mentoring Plus [5] banner have proliferated in recent
years, concentrating their efforts in boroughs (e.g. Brent, Lambeth and Lewisham)
and cities (London, Birmingham) which have high proportions of African and
Caribbean ethnic minorities.
Positive Action Mentoring and the De!cient Subject
Positive action mentoring seeking to offer support, encouragement and
positive role models through an empathetic understanding of the obstacles
faced by oppressed groups. There are a range of mentoring projects for
black people and women, including young women, mainly linked to
education and work-based management development programmes. (National Mentoring Network, 1999; p. 3)
Mentoring, as conceptualised thus far, principally assumes that the individual being
mentored is de!cient in some respects; ‘either they need development, or they have
been inadequately socialised, they lack self-esteem, they have no acceptable role
models or are reliant on peers to guide them’ Philip (2000, p. 10). Conversely,
concerted efforts are made by ‘positive action’ mentoring practitioners to re-inscribe
the language of “de!cit” with af!rmative assumptions of potential and ability
realised through the ‘guidance and support of a culturally af!rming environment’
(Noguera, 1997, p. 151). For example, Lynthia Grant, the director of Mentoring
Plus Brent asserts:
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
95
Our best mentors are often local African Caribbean men who themselves
have been excluded from the mainstream, but have somehow changed their
lives around … that’s what mentoring is about: movement and change.
(Chronical World, 1998).
Academic support for Positive Action mentoring principally derives from cognitive development studies conducted in the USA (Stevenson, 1993; Thompson,
1994; Lee, 1996). Thompson (1994) identi!es how a strong racial identity assists
young black males to manage the stresses and strains of the adolescent transitional
period. Often, this is combined with a preference for adult black males as the most
appropriate persons to provide the services and support needed by black male
youths (Holland, 1999). Willis (1990), for example, is insistent that ‘only a Black
man can teach a Black boy how to be a man’. This model of ‘mentoring’ has strong
similarities to parenting as the mentor advises, guides and protects the young man’s
transition into adulthood (Levinson, 1978). Academics direct our attention to
Homer’s (800BC) Odyssey as the !rst historical reference to classical mentoring
(Levinson, 1978; Whitehead, 1995; Roberts, 1999). Homer’s epic poem describes
how Odysseus, king of Ithaca, sets off to the Trojan war, leaving his young son
Telemachus under the supervision of his trusted and wise older friend, Mentor.
Homer’s mentor is a protective guiding and supportive !gure, eagerly emulated by
the highly impressionable Telemachus.
The de!ning quality of this classical form of mentoring is that of apprenticeship
and role modelling. Levinson (1978) describes how the old master passes on
knowledge and experience to facilitate the apprentice’s realisation of his ‘dream’, the
emergence into successful manhood. Ironically, whilst not entirely excluded in
Homer’s poem (closer reading reveals Mentor to have been the goddess Athene in
disguise), women are conspicuously absent from modern versions of classical mentoring. Philip (2000) provides an incisive and fascinating, empirically informed
account of the social context in which mentoring practices are embedded. She also
draws attention to the gender-and culture-blind nature of traditional mentoring:
the role of the mother is not explored but the underlying theme is that she,
as a single parent, would be unable to induct him into the subtleties of the
world of adult men, which remain available only to the ‘old heads’. (Philip,
p. 4)
Whilst keen to explore issues of gender in mentoring relations, Philip’s interest
appears restricted to identifying the social structural relations, which have excluded
women from classical mentoring discourses. Similar theoretical limitations are found
in Flaxman’s (Flaxman et al., 1988; p. 15) account of how gender interacts with
mentoring process: ‘Contrary to the recent rhetoric that mentoring opens up closed
social structures, historically mentoring has been a relationship between two white
men’. Neither account examines the inter-subjective meanings through which versions of gender identity are produced and sustained. Consequently, neither study
directs our attention to how gender identity is constituted in classical mentoring
discourse; that is, as the linear progression of a pre-social self, !xed in form,
meaning and directionality. Racial identity assumes similar decontextualised, essen-
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
96
P. Odih
tialist constructs by failing to recognise the plurality of racialised experiences and
identities, which constitute ethnic communities. The classical model of mentoring,
therefore, fails to recognise the self as ‘always in negotiation, not with a single set of
oppositions that place us always in the same relation to others, but with a series of
different positionalities’ (Hall, 1992; p. 31). The self of post-structuralist discourse
is not conceptualised as stable, continuous and consistent between linear tempo-spatial frames as presumed in classical models of mentoring. Rather, subjects live
mentoring relations as well as being constituted by them. Walkerdine (1990, p. 3),
in"uenced here by the writings of Foucault (1982), describes how teachers and
students ‘are not unitary subjects uniquely positioned, but are produced as a nexus
of subjectivities in relations of power which are constantly shifting, rendering them
at one moment powerful and at another powerless’.
Mentoring contexts are both site and medium through which identities are
af!rmed and contested. Classical mentoring models, therefore, fall short of recognising the vast differences and variations of those who are black and male (Mac an
Ghaill, 1994, Connolly, 1995; Sewell, 1998). Part of the problem resides with a lack
of socially informed research providing critical analysis of mentoring practices and
the forms of masculine subjectivity which are their condition and outcome. Existing
literatures tend towards description and prescription (e.g. Field & Field, 1994;
Kerry & Mayes, 1995) rather than attempting to theorise and locate mentoring
within existing social, political and cultural relations.
In the USA, mentoring is !rmly established, as evidenced in the 1980s with the
launch of the journal, Mentoring International, and the International Centre for
Mentoring. But despite its expansive academic history, US mentoring discourses are
dominated by cognitive developmental models. The mentoring process is represented in these models as:
a means of enhancing the transition from adolescence to adulthood
through the provision of support and challenge which is acceptable to both
parties … The theoretical underpinnings of the model lie in the !eld of
developmental psychology and the works of Rutter (1987), Werner (1990),
Bronfenbrenner (1986), and Galbo et al. (1990) have been particularly
in"uential in outlining various aspects of mentoring. (Philip, 2000; p. 8)
Much of this work has been criticised for focusing too narrowly on the developing
individual and for ‘according scant attention to the social and structural contexts
within which young people make the transition to adulthood’ Philip (1999, p. 190).
The omission of inter-subjective meaning and structural relations from general
mentoring discourses is even more acute in the speci!c area of racialised gender
identity. Here, cognitive developmental models predominate (Faubert, et al., 1996;
Locke & Zimmerman, 1987). Faubert and Locke et al. (1996), for example, have
argued that Deliberate Psychological Education (DPE) conducted by trained mentors ‘can be effective in promoting abstract thinking and ego stage development’
among African-American adolescents. Within this discourse of racialised gender
identity, language merely represents ‘objective’ cognitive processes. Gender identi-
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
97
ties, as represented in cognitive models, are expressed rather than constituted
through discourse.
Moreover, in their omission of social context, cognitive models fail to recognise
the (re)constitution of adolescent behaviour through processes of de!nition and
social interaction. Sociologists have long since drawn attention to teacher–pupil
interaction as providing highly informative understandings of educational identities,
achievements and relations. Educational identities, self and forms of classroom
communication are described in this tradition as constructed through symbolic
systems of meanings (Delamaont, 1976; Hargreaves, 1976). In learning a language,
the individual acquires the ability to use it for his/her own purposes and to turn it
back upon the stimulus of experience and in so doing con!rm and/or challenge its
meaning. Meighan and Siraj-Blatchford (1997, p. 264) describe this process of
self-formation as:
the process by which, through acquisition of a form of symbolic representation, individuals achieve the means by which, through acquisition of a
form of symbolic representation, they are empowered to share and understand the accepted and conventional symbolic interpretations of the world,
are given a tool with which they can re"ect upon these representations and
the signi!cance these have for their own individuality.
Central to the constitution of the self is its constant negotiation with other perceptions, ideals, norms and values. As Stebbings (1975) expresses it ‘perception or
recognition of speci!c aspects of the environment is invariably the !rst step in this
process, and some sort of action (or inaction) is the necessary consequence’. In
recent years, studies of teacher–pupil interaction and ethnicity have found teachers’
perceptions of the behaviour of black working-class children to be frequently
negative (Mac an Ghaill, 1988, 1994; Connolly 1991; Gillborn, 1995; Sewell,
1998). Gillborn (1995), in his study of exclusion rates amongst ethnic minorities,
identi!es this process as operating in ‘racist manner’. Contrary to the dominant
media image of exclusion as a result of ‘out of control violence’, Gillborn found that
the behaviour of black students was subject to different interpretations from that of
their white counterparts. White teachers were found to feel ‘more threatened’ by
black students and were more likely to interpret their behaviour as warranting
disciplinary action. Mac an Ghaill (1994, p. 148) provides the following excerpt
derived from a conversation with an apparently open-minded teacher:
The Afro-Caribbeans are tough. I tried not to let anyone in"uence me in
how I treated them they look at you with wild eyes if you tell them to sit
down. They are looking, expecting trouble. They are more prejudiced than
white people. The Asians are better. You tell them to do something and
they are meek and they go and do it.
This excerpt illustrates just how much becoming a delinquent depends on the
typi!cations and interpretations of those in authority. Connolly (1991), in his study
of infants, describes how boys are both produced, and active, in constructing their
identities as black boys by drawing upon relevant discourses to con!rm and support
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
98
P. Odih
their constructions. Returning to Mac an Ghaill (1994), his ethnographies enable us
to think beyond the de!ciency models of ‘race relations’ studies and to focus on ‘the
student’s perspectives of the meaning and purpose of school’. In so doing, educationalists are able to recognise ‘the logic of their [i.e. Afro-Caribbean males]
response as a survival strategy’ (Mac an Ghaill, 1994, p. 151). By exclusively
focusing on the individual cognitive developmental discourses, and the classical
mentoring models that they inform, they fail to recognise the high rates of ‘behavioural dif!culties’ exhibited by ethnic minority male youths as an outcome of
typi!cation and social (re)de!nition. Mac an Ghaill (1994, p. 147) eloquently
describes how his work shifted from viewing the subculture of Afro-Caribbeans as
de!cient to recognising this subculture as a legitimate mechanism opposed to the
school’s ‘institutional authoritarianism and racism’.
The individualis m of cognitively informed, classical mentoring fundamentally fails
to comprehend the constitutive capacities of language and the inextricable relation
between gendered subjectivities, their socio-historical context and the forms of
power/knowledge involved in their production. Acknowledging this, it is unsurprising that so few studies have recognised how calls for male-only mentoring programmes provide conditions for the promotion and legitimation of hegemonic forms
of masculine identity.
Classical Mentoring and Production of Hegemonic Masculinities
Reed (1998) identi!es certain mentoring role models to be embedded with unproblematised notions of masculinity. Mentoring literature is replete with a notion of
positive masculinity as bound up with high levels of purposive-rational instrumentality in relation to a world that there is an urge to control. Seidler (1989) describes this
form of control as one that equates with reason, logic and rational process instrumental in its pursuit of success. Only the never-ending supply of new conquests,
‘challenges, and uncertainties keep those caught up in such masculine discourses
forever trapped in a permanent striving to be in control’ (Kerfoot & Knights, 1996,
p. 12). Chance UK, an established UK mentoring programme for high-risk primary
school children, promotes itself as involving a ‘rigorous training programme [which
is] challenging and enabling…. Although about 60% of potential mentors drop out
between !rst contact and the end of training’. Such practices resonate with a form
of masculinity preoccupied with cognition and externalities and expressive of a
distancing or disembodiment from the contextularity and particularity of human
experience. The promotion of self-disciplined rational masculinities through the
adoption of authoritative mentoring practices is equally evidenced in the recent
emergence of anti-feminist male activism (McAulay, 1999a, 2000; Bly, 1999;
Farrell, 2001). McAulay (2000), in an article published in the Times Educational
Supplement (1999a), blames the prevalence of female teachers, ‘soft’ pedagogic
practices and failing mothers as the prime cause for the current underachievement
of boys. Proposed solutions to this crisis include the integration of ‘time blocks’ into
the school year to enable boys to attend army camps staffed by male mentors.
Michel Foucault’s notion of discipline and governmentality provides a means of
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
99
addressing the gendered power–knowledge relations that sustain these practices and
the forms of masculine subjectivity which are their outcome.
In Discipline and Punish (1979), Foucault reveals how subjecti!cation concerns the
establishment of forms of relations of self through disciplinary practices and the
incessant codi!cation and material organisation of conduct in ‘time/space’. Following this, Marshall (1996, p. 95) describes how schools rely on an ensemble of
‘regulated communications’ (lessons, questions, answers, orders etc.) situated within
tempo-spatially enclosed locations. Such locations are distinguished precisely
through their violation of everyday ‘territories of the self’ (Giddens, 1984). One
cannot help but remark that this description of spatial organisation is an almost
perfect analogy for the authoritative mentoring procedures proposed by anti-feminist
campaigners and positive action groups. For example, the anti-feminist male activist, McAulay (2000), proposes integrating:
a number of time blocks into the school year, for every year of a boy’s
schooling. During these blocks, boys will go to residential centres in rural
locations…. We recommend that each centre or group at the same centre
only contains six or so boys from each school. This is to avoid any pack
mentality developing and to assist in social development by introducing
other children. To insist in this programme it would be bene!cial if fathers,
suitably vetted by SCRO [Scottish Criminal Record Of!ce], were able to
go along and participate.
It might suf!ce to say here that suggestions of ‘time blocks’ and militarised routines
resonate with the disembodied rationality of disciplinary power (Odih & Knights,
1999). The disciplinary intent of these procedures is also alluded to by Reed (1998,
p. 64) when she describes how ‘the articulation of regulation and surveillance with
a gender dimension has a wider signi!cance when put together with current
criminal-justice legislation and social-welfare reforms’.
Whilst intended to reassert independent masculine identities, these practices serve
to subject already vulnerable, disenfranchised working-class males to increased
scrutiny and regulation by government agencies. Apple (1995, p. 356) also draws
attention to these practices as having trajectories in forms of governmentality; as he
expresses it: ‘Gender and its regulation is not an afterthought in state policy. Rather,
it is a constitutive part of it. Nearly all of the state’s activity is involved in it’.
Nevertheless, anti-feminist male activists and positive action campaigners continue
to promote unproblematically male-only mentoring practices. McAulay (2000), in
his anti-feminist campaign, is clearly inspired by the work of Dr Spencer Holland,
an educational psychologist who works with underprivileged black American boys.
The Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring program established by Dr Holland in July
1995 has the following mission statement:
To place a caring, responsible African American man in the life of every
African American boy in our community. Without black men as part of the
lives of black boys in urban areas, death and crime will be their choices.
Holland and McAulay (2000) clearly share an ‘essentialist, homogenising (and
hence in effect discriminatory) notion of what “men”, “masculinity”, and “boys”
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
100
P. Odih
should mean’ (Broughton, 2000, p. 284). Neither view recognises the dynamic and
relational properties of gender, ‘the complex and contradictory relations between
diverse forms of masculinity and diverse forms of femininity’ (Jackson, 1998, p. 85).
Anti-feminist male activist calls for all-black, all-male schools (e.g. Nation of Islam)
construct one-dimensional representations in which men and women are lumped
together in determinist and reductive ways (Jackson, 1998). Black feminists have
consistently sought to transcend dualistic conceptions of racialised gender identity.
Mirza (1993), in her school-based ethnography, critiques the construction of black
male underachievement in terms of pathological matriarchal relations. Carby (1987,
1999) has drawn our attention to the manner in which oppressive masculinities
permeate black culture, closing off ways of thinking, seeing and feeling associated
with feminine identities. Carby (1999) is eloquent and persuasive about the dangers
inherent in having fewer voices, especially those of black women, speaking for the
race as a whole. But the principal problem with gender absolutism is that it
promotes a simplistic and monocausal description of gender relations (Weedon,
1987). Males and females are grouped together as !xed, uni!ed oppressors or
victims; the vast range of shifting and often contradictory forms of gender identity
is ignored (Jackson, 1998, p. 84). In so doing these models disregard how:
masculine subjectivities and feminine subjectivities are not singular, static
and polarised ‘sex roles’ mechanically reproduced within the binary logic of
female victims and male perpetrators. Instead boys’ masculinities are
actively negotiated in schools, families, peer groups and so on, through
dynamic, relational processes that are constantly shifting, historically.
(Jackson, 1998, p. 86)
Anti-feminist male activist calls for authoritative, single-sex mentoring practices
merely succeed in reproducing a dichotomised, confrontational model of male
underachievement which gets in the way ‘of a more open dialogue emerging between
men and women working in the !eld’ (Jackson, 1998, p. 82). An insight into the
content of this dialogue is provided by a number of fascinating ethnographies
conducted in recent years. These ethnographies have variously sought to examine
the ways in which racialised and gendered cultural identities are constructed within
schooling contexts (Connell, 1985, Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Sewell, 1998). The
distinction of these ethnographies resides in their fundamental recognition of the
precariousness of masculine identities and their historical speci!city; as Kenway
(1996, p. 510) expresses it:
Mac an Ghaill’s emphasis on the fragile and "uid nature of masculinities in
the context of dynamic power politics between males and females and
between males points to the uncertainty of settlements about what constitutes masculinity in a given person, time and place and between groups.
The social movements associated with feminism, gay and lesbian movements and anti-racism are amongst such forces … In turn this means that
many masculinities are constantly on the offensive and the defensive and in
need of regular maintenance, renewal and repair.
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
101
Acknowledging the inherent "uidity and multiplicity of masculinities, Connell
(1987, p. 184) describes how forms of racialised hegemonic masculinity are ‘always
constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to
women’. Mac an Ghaill (1996), tentatively recounts the painful combination of
silencing and targeting enacted in the policing and af!rming of hegemonic heterosexual masculinities. His descriptions of the misogyny and virulent homophobia
displayed in the production of heterosexual masculine identity are valid issues not
least because they challenge the ‘progressive’ politics of mentoring. Schools are
revealed as ‘sites of masculinizing practices … for “doing” masculinities’ (Seidler,
2000, p. 291). The unproblematic application of classical mentoring models to the
problem of ‘failing boys’ fundamentally fails to appreciate how homophobia and
misogyny are often deployed in the production and reproduction of masculinities
within the school. Conversely, the studies of Mac an Ghaill (1994) and Sewell
(1998) encourage us to problematise existing approaches to gender, mentoring and
the underachievement of ethnic minorities.
Conclusion
Explanations for the production of social inequality at school have generally tended
to concentrate on either structural or individual determinants. For example, culturalist perspectives have focused upon dysfunction and pathology with regard to the
‘distinctive’ cultural attributes of Afro-Caribbean students. In contrast, social psychologists have examined the cognitive processes involved in the development of
black male identity. Both explanations assume a false dichotomy between the
individual and society, for ‘the individual cannot exist outside of society and society
is composed of groups of individuals ’ (Askew & Carnell, 1998; p. 56). As market
forces increasingly mediate equal opportunity at school, it becomes even more
imperative that educational research incorporates explanations at the level of state
discourse, the institution, social groups and individuals. It is only through such
perspectives that one can fully appreciate the increasing popularity of mentoring as
both condition and outcome of a new, disturbing trend in de!ning social inequality,
for, the language of performance, ef!ciency and market forces (re)presents inequality in individualistic terms and as the responsibility of the ‘de!cient subject’.
Paradoxically, an emphasis on private relationships is at odds with the premise that
mentoring intervention has the potential to combat the isolation and insecurities
experienced by young people in the transition to adulthood (Philip, 2000), for
identity construction is a public event in which individuals take up and experiment
with a variety of discourses of adulthood. Whilst open to contestation, such discourses are powerful and can provide further understanding of the complex processes which are taking place in the construction of racialised gender identities at
school. The school-based ethnographies discussed in this article have succeeded in
introducing the heterogeneous social processes through which black youths attempt
to negotiate con"icting demands of peers, school, gender and cultural identity (Mac
an Ghaill, 1994; Sewell, 1998). Their suggestion that homophobia and misogyny are
often deployed in the construction of masculine identity is particularly pertinent to
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
102
P. Odih
the present context in which mentoring programmes adhere to unre"exive classical
models and unproblematic assumptions of what masculinity ought to be. If part of
the problem resides with a lack of socially informed research, part of the solution is
the production of ethnographic research which examines the subjective experiences
and cultural processes involved in the interplay between mentoring, ethnicity and
the production of masculine identities.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Learning Mentors are a speci!c strand of the Government’s Excellence in Cities initiative.
They are paid school employees who work alongside teachers and other staff, to help pupils
overcome barriers to learning, both within and outside school.
The London Borough of Brent serves the largest proportion of ethnic pupils in the UK.
Ethnic monitoring conducted in 1994 revealed one in six Afro-Caribbean boys to have
achieved one or more GCSEs at higher grade passes (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996). This
compares to one in three Asian and one in four white boys (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996).
Only one in !ve of those who are permanently excluded from secondary school return to
full-time education (DfEE, 1999a).
The KWESI project was established in 1994 speci!cally as a mentoring scheme for black
boys in Birmingham. ASELU is a secondary school mentoring programme established in
1998 by Hammersmith and Fulham Education Department. ASELU is aimed at students
in year 5 and 6 and seeks to address the later divide in achievement between minority pupils
and white/European pupils at secondary levels. The CHANCE project was established in
1996 with funding from the Home Of!ce Programme Development Unit, the National
Charities Board and the Cass Foundation.
Mentoring Plus refers to several mentoring which work speci!cally with young offenders
who have been referred from outside agencies. These projects are supported by the national
crime prevention organization, Crime Concern. Mentoring Plus uses additional activities
such as education programmes and residential help to complement mentoring (National
Mentoring Network, 1999).
References
APPLE, M. (1995) Education and Power (London, Routledge).
ASKEW, S. & CARNELL, E. (1998) Transforming Learning: individual and global change (London,
Cassell).
BALL, S. (1990) Education Policy: a critical and post-structuralist approach (Milton Keynes, Open
University Press).
BENIOFF , S. (1997) A Second Chance: developing mentoring and education projects for young people
(London, Crime Concern/Commission for Racial Equality).
BLAIR, M. & BOURNE, J. (1998) Making the Difference: teaching and learning strategies in successful
multi-ethnic schools (London, Department for Education and Employment).
BLY, R. (1990) Iron John; a book about men (Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley).
BRUZY, B. (1991) The reunion of masculine and feminine. An interview with Robert Bly, Creation
Magazine, February.
BOURNE, J. et al. (1992) Outcast England (Lewes, Falmer Press).
BROUGHTON, T. (2000) Review Symposium; Men engaging feminism; pro-feminism, backlashes
and schooling, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 21, pp. 283–286.
CARBY, H. (1987) Reconstructing Womanhod; the emergence of the Afro-American woman novelist
(New York, Oxford University Press).
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
103
CARBY, H. (1999) Race Men (Boston, MA, Harvard University Press).
CHITTY, C. (1999) The Education System Transformed (Wiltshire, Baseline Books).
CHRONICAL WORLD (1998) Mentoring: movement to “reconnect” youth to society sweeps
inner-city
Black
Britain,
Chronicle
World—Changing
Black
Britain.
http://
www.chronicleworld.org
CONNELL , R.W. (1989) Cool guys, swots and wimps: the interplay of masculinity and education,
Oxford Review of Education, 15, pp. 291–303.
CONNELL , R.W. (1990) The state, gender and sexual politics, Theory and Society, 19, pp. 507–544.
CONNELL , R.W. (1995) Masculinities (Cambridge, Polity Press).
CONNOLLY , P. (1995) Racism, masculine peer-group relations and the schooling of African/
Caribbean infant boys, British Journal of Education, 16, pp. 75–92.
CONNOLLY , P. (1995) Boys will be boys? Racism, sexuality and the construction of masculine
identities amongst infant boys, in: J. HOLLAND et al. (Eds) Debates and Issues in Feminist
Research and Pedagogy (Clevedon, The Open University Press).
DELAMONT, S. (1976) Interactionist Classroom (London, Methuen).
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (1999a) A New Start for Minority Ethnic
Young People (London, DfEE).
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (1999b) Integrated Guidance on Social
Inclusion: pupil support (London, DfEE).
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (2000a) Black Caribbean Young Men’s
Experiences of Education and Employment, R. Fitzgerald, S. Finch & A. Nove (National
Centre for Social Research).
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (2000b) Removing the Barriers: raising
achievement levels for minority ethnic pupils (London, DfEE).
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (2000c) Let’s Make Learning Cool. How
to Ensure Boys Fulfil their Potential Without Girls Losing Out. Classroom Issues. http://
www.dfee.gov.uk/
teacher/data/issues/data/cool_10.htm
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DfEE) (2001) Transforming Secondary Education
(London, DfEE).
DRIVER , S. & MARTELL, L. (1998) New Labour Politics after Thatcherism (Cambridge, Polity Press).
EPSTEIN , D. et al. (1998) Failing Boys: issues in gender and achievement (Buckingham, Open
University Press).
FARRELL, W. (2001) The myth of male power, M.E.N. Magazine, October.
FIELD, B. & FIELD, T. (1994) Teachers as Mentors: a practical guide (London, Falmer Press).
FAUBERT, M. et al. (1996) Promoting cognitive and ego development of African-American rural
youth: a program of deliberate psychological education, Journal of Adolescence, 19, pp.
533–543.
FLAXMAN, E. et al. (1988) Youth Mentoring: programs and practices, Urban Diversity Series, no. 97.
FOUCAULT, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, trans. A. Sheridan (New York,
Vintage/Random).
FOUCAULT, M. (1982) The subject and power, in: H. DREYFUS & P. RABINOW (Eds) Beyond
Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf).
FREEDMAN, M. (1993) The Kindness of Strangers: adult mentors, urban youth and the new voluntanism
(San Fransisco, CA, Jossey–Bass).
G IDDENS , A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: outline to the theory of structuration (Oxford, Polity
Press).
G ILLBORN, D. (1995) Racism and Antiracism in Real Schools (Buckingham, Open University Press).
G ILLBORN, D. & GIPPS, C. (1996) Recent Research on the Achievement of Ethnic Minority Pupils.
Ofsted Reviews of Research (London, HMSO).
G ILLBORN, D. & MIRZA, H. (2000) Educational Inequality. Mapping Race, Class and Gender
(London, Of!ce for Standards in Education).
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
104
P. Odih
HALL, S. (1992) New ethnicities, in: J. DONALD & A. RATTANSI (Eds) Race, Culture and Difference
(London, Sage and Open University Press).
HALSEY, A., LAUDER, H. & BROWN, P. (1999) Education, Culture, Economy, Society (Oxford,
Oxford University Press).
HARDING , L. & FAIHALL, D. (1997) Labour repel’s Lad’s Army, Guardian, 3 February.
HARGREAVES, D. et al. (1976) Deviance in the Classroom (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).
HAYDEN, C. (1996) Children Excluded from Primary School: debates, evidence, responses (Buckingham, Open University Press).
HOLLAND, S. (1999) The Urban League Big Brother/Big Sisters Mentoring Program USA.
HOME OFFICE RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & STATISTICS DIRECTORATE (1999) Using Mentors to
Change Problem Behavior in Primary School Children, I. St James Roberts & C. Singh, Report
No. 95.
HOSKIN, K. (1979) The examination, disciplinary power and rational schooling, History of
Education, 8, pp. 135–146.
JACKSON, D. (1998) Breaking out the binary trap: boys’ underachievement, schooling and gender
relations, in: D. EPSITEN et al. (Eds) Failing Boys? Issues in Gender and Achievement (Milton
Keynes, Open University Press).
KELLY, P. (2000) The dangerousness of youth-at-risk; the possibilities of surveillance and
intervention in uncertain times, Journal of Adolescence, 23, pp. 463–476.
KENWAY, J. (1996) Taking stock of gender reform policies for Australian schools: past, present
and future, British Educational Research Journal, 23, pp. 329–344.
KERFOOT, D. & KNIGHTS D. (1996) The best is yet to come; searching for embodiment in
managerial work, in: D. COLLINSION & J. HEARN (Eds) Masculinity and Management
(London, Sage).
KERRY, T. & MAYES, S. (1995) Issues in Mentoring (Buckingham, Open University Press).
LEE, C. (1985) Successful rural black adolescents: a psychosocial pro!le, Adolescence, 20, pp.
129–142.
LEES, S. (1986) Losing Out: sexuality and adolescent girls (London, Hutchinson).
LEVINSON , D. (1978) The Seasons of a Man’s Life (New York, Knopf).
LOCKE, D. & ZIMMERMAN, N. (1987) Effects of peer-counseling training on psychological
maturity of black students, Journal of College Student Personnel, 28, pp. 525–532.
MAC AN GHAILL, M. (1988) Young, Gifted and Black: student–teacher relations in the schooling of
black youth (Milton Keynes, Open University Press).
MAC AN G HAILL, M. (1994) The Making of Men: masculinities, sexualities and schooling (Buckingham, Open University Press).
MARSHALL, J. (1990) Michel Foucault: personal autonomy and education (London, Kluwer).
MARTINO, W. & PALLOTTA-CHIAROLLI, M. (2000) So What’s a Boy. Addressing Issues of Masculinity
and Schooling (Buckingham, Open University Press).
MCAULEY, G. (1999a) Equality street—one way only? Times Educational Supplement, 10 September.
MCAULEY, G. (1999b) Why boys will be boys and better citizens if only the forces of political
correctness would let them, Daily Mail, 3 November.
MCAULEY, G. (2000) The male order: why mum needs help to turn lost boys into men, Sunday
Herald, January.
MCINTYRE, D., HAZEL, H. & WILKIN, M. (1994) Mentoring Perspectives on School-based Teacher
Education (London, Kogan Page).
MEIGHAN, R. & SIRAJ-BLATCHFORD, I. (1998) A Sociology of Educating (London, Cassell).
MIRZA, H. (1993) Young, Female and Black (London, Routledge).
MONAGHAN, J. (1992) Mentoring, person, process, practice and problems, British Journal of
Educational Studies, 40, pp. 248–263.
NATIONAL MENTORING NETWORK (1999) Mentoring Socially Excluded Young People: lessons from
practice (London, Department for Education and Employment).
Downloaded By: [Goldsmiths College Library] At: 17:58 19 March 2008
Mentors and Role Models
105
NOGUERA, P. (1997) Reconsidering the ‘crisis’ of the black male in America, Social Justice,
ODIH, P. & KNIGHTS, D. (1999) Discipline needs time: education for citizenship and the
!nancially self disciplined subject, The School Field, X, pp. 127–153.
OFFICE FOR STANDARDS IN EDUCATION (1999) Raising the attainment of minority ethnic pupils—
school and LEA responses HMI 170.
OPEN U NIVERSITY (1998) Making the Difference: teaching and learning strategies in successful
multi-ethnic schools. Commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment.
OSLER , A. (1997) Exclusion from School and Racial Equality, Research Report, Commission for
Racial Equality.
PHILIP , K. (1999) Mentoring in a Context of Risk: new opportunities for work with young people?
Paper presented at Living at the Edge: An International Conference on Young People and
Social Exclusion. University of Strathclyde, Sept 9–12.
PHILIP , K. (2000) Mentoring, pitfalls and potential for young people, Youth Policy, 67, pp. 1–15.
PHILIP , K. & HENDRY, L. (1996) Young people and mentoring—towards a typology? Journal of
Adolescence, 19, pp. 189–201.
PHILIP , K. & HENDRY, L. (2000) Making sense of mentoring or mentoring making sense?
Re"ections on the mentoring process by adult mentors with young people, Journal of
Community & Applied Social Psychology, 10; pp. 211–223.
REED, L. (1998) Zero tolerance: gender performance and school failure, in: D. EPSTEIN et al.
(Eds) Failing Boys? Issues in Gender and Achievement (Milton Keynes, Open University
Press).
RIESMAN, D. (1962) The Lonely Crowd: a study of the changing American character (New Haven,
CT, Yale University Press).
ROBERTS, A. (1999) Homer’s Mentor. Duties Fulfilled or Misconstrued? http://home.att.net/ , nickols/
homers_mentor.htm
ROBERTS, L. & SINGH, C. (1997) Using Mentoring to Change Problem Behaviour in Primary School
Children, Research Findings No. 95 (Home Of!ce Research, Development and Statistics
Directorate).
SEIDLER, V. (1989) Rediscovering Masculinity: reason, language and sexuality (London, Routledge).
SEIDLER, V. (2000) Review Symposium: Men engaging feminisms; pro-feminism, backlash and
schooling, British Journal of Education, 21, pp. 286–292.
SEWELL, T. (1998) Loose canons: exploding the myth of the ‘black macho’ lad, in: D. EPSTEIN et
al. (Eds) Failing Boys: issues in gender and achievement (Milton Keynes, Open University
Press).
SHAPIRO, E., HASELTINE, F. & ROWE, M. (1978) Moving up: role models, mentors and the patron
system, Sloan Management Review, 19, pp. 51–58.
SIRAJ- BLATCHFORD, I. & MEIGHAN, R. (1997) A Sociology of Educating (London, Cassell).
SMINK , J. (1990) Mentoring programs for At-risk Youth: a dropout prevention research report (Clemson, SC, National Dropout Prevention Center).
STEBBINS, R. (1975) Teachers and Meaning (Leiden, E. Brill).
STEVENSON, H.C. (1993) Validation of the scale of racial socialization for African American
adolescents: a preliminary analysis, Psych Discourse, 24(12), pp. 6–10.
THOMPSON , V.L.S. (1994) A preliminary outline of treatment strategies with African Americans
coping with racism, Psych Discourse, 25(6), pp. 6–9.
WALKERDINE, V. (1990) School Girl Fictions (London, Verso).
WEEDON , C. (1987) Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (Oxford, Basil Blackwell).
WHITEHEAD, J. (1995) Review Essay: Mentoring perspectives on school based teacher education,
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 16, pp. 129–133.
WILLIS, P. (1990) Moving Culture: an enquiry into the cultural activities of young people (London,
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation).