Is There More to
“Antischoolishness” than
Masculinity?
Men and Masculinities
Volume 11 Number 4
June 2009 462-487
© 2009 SAGE Publications
10.1177/1097184X06298780
http://jmm.sagepub.com
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http://online.sagepub.com
On Multiple Student Styles, Gender, and Educational
Self-Exclusion in Secondary School
Selma Therese Lyng
Work Research Institute, Norway
Boys behaving “laddish” and “macho” are dominating ethnographic research on secondary
school, and a number of studies during the past years focus on school rejection as a matter
of masculinity. Despite calls for research to include a wider range of student groups, there
are still few studies of secondary schoolgirls and even of schoolboys cultivating other
subcultures than “laddish” ones. Including groups of students often left out in existing
studies, this article presents a multiple set of student styles: the golden boy, macho boy,
geek, nerd, golden girl, mouse, babe, and wildcat. It discusses how this set of student
styles complicates notions of intrinsic connections between school rejection and masculinity. It argues the need for a more complex approach to gender and school orientation, recognizing that even though students “do” school rejection in gender specific ways,
educational self-exclusion is not in itself a gender specific phenomenon.
Keywords: educational exclusion; gender and education; student styles; masculinities;
femininities; school rejection; “laddishness”
Introduction: School Rejection, “Laddishness,” and Masculinity
The issue of “antischoolish” student cultures has for several decades been central
in research on educational exclusion. A vast number of studies, beginning with
Willis’s (1977) seminal ethnography, demonstrate how different groups of students
in various secondary school contexts actively take part and become complicit in their
own exclusion from learning and achievement at school, by cultivating one form or
another of a student subculture characterized by rejecting school values as well as
resisting schoolwork and teachers.
When examining what mechanisms operate in making different groups of
students relate differently to school, existing school ethnographies have mainly
turned to three distinct principles of social classification: class, ethnicity/race, and
gender. Often these principles are regarded as competing by researchers, and there are
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 463
discussions as to which should be prioritized (Griffin 2005, 294). School rejection was
originally associated with white working-class boys’ culture (Willis 1977). However,
it has been argued that “laddish” behavior was appropriated by and popularized for
middle-class boys and men in the 1990s (Francis 1999, 357), and boys’ school
rejecting subcultures are observed and reported across social classes and ethnic
groups (e.g., Flores-Gonzalez 2005; Francis 1999; Mac an Ghaill 1994; Martino
1999; Reay 2002; Youdell 2003). It is noted that boys behaving “laddish” or
“macho” are dominating existing studies and that, informed by theories of masculinities and paralleled by a public attention to the “underachieving” boys issue, a
number of works over the last years have examined school rejection primarily as a
boys’ issue and a characteristic of masculinity itself, leaving school-rejecting girls
practically invisible (Arnot 2004, 36; Griffin 2000, 2005; Jones and Myhill 2004,
560; Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli 2005; Osler, Street, Lall, and Vincent 2002).
The notion that, in general, school commitment and masculinity are fundamentally
incompatible is even found within school research informed by theories of multiple
masculinities (e.g., Swain 2005). The “multiple model” explicitly put emphasis on recognizing the specificity of different masculinities (Kimmel, Hearn, and Connell 2005,
1) as gender is understood as intersecting with other social divisions, such as social
class, race, ethnicity, and age (Kimmel et al. 2005, 3). Since the late 1980s, gender
researchers have focused on the diversity within each gender, not only between them
(Skelton 2001; Swain 2005, 214). Also within research on gender in schools, a number
of recent studies note that gender is played out in much more complex and contradictory ways than was reported within the “sex role” framework of earlier gender research
and thus repudiate notions in current politicized public and media of girls’ and boys’
interests as unambiguously opposite (e.g., Connell 1989; Foster, Kimmel, and Skelton
2001; Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli 2005; Meyenn and Parker 2001; Skelton 2001;
Swain 2005, 2006; Thorne 1993; Yates 1997).
However, within research on student masculinities and femininities, the explicit
theoretical intention of multiplicity is not yet consistently followed up in empirical
and analytical practice. Hence those boys rejecting school values and resisting
schoolwork are still the most studied in schools (Delamont 2000; Swain 2005).
Despite calls for adopting a wider focus to be able to grasp the variety of student
groups and the relations between them (Griffin 2005; Jones and Myhill 2004;
Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli 2005; McRobbie 1996; Reay 2001; Rizvi 2004, 89),
there are still few empirical studies of secondary school girls’ subcultures, as well as
of boys cultivating subcultures other than “laddish” ones, to shed light on processes
of school rejection and self-exclusion from education. Even in studies where
students remind the researchers that school-rejecting behavior is typical only for a
minority of boys and that also girls behave in disruptive ways, a gender-specific analytical approach of masculinity is maintained (e.g., Francis 1999).
This article offers a more complex account of relations between gender and students’
orientations toward school. Rather than focusing on one particular, predefined group of
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464 Men and Masculinities
students, the aim is to map out the variety of student styles observed in two Norwegian
junior high schools. This article thus differs from many other reports of secondary
school ethnographies in that it reveals a “class photo” rather than a close portrait of one
or a few student groups. A multiple set of student styles is presented, including the
macho boy, golden boy, geek, nerd, wildcat, mouse, golden girl, and babe. Thus this
article is an attempt to fill in “blank spots” of student groups, rarely accounted for in
most secondary school studies. Moreover the set of multiple styles demonstrates that
there is definitely more to school rejection than “laddishness” and masculinity.
Students associated with distinct girl styles are expected to perform “antischoolishly,”
and one specific boy style allows some boys to commit enthusiastically to schoolwork
and teachers without compromising their masculinity and peer status. Hence I find that
accounting for the variety of student styles makes visible variations both within and
between genders that are missed when merely an analytical approach of masculinity is
presumed. In fact, though highly gendered, the student styles presented in this article
show that students’ orientation toward school is not primarily a question of gender.
Rather there are both feminine and masculine styles for “doing” commitment to, rejection of, and indifference toward school.
Confronted with these variations, I argue the need for complicating some ways in
which students’ orientations toward school is commonly rendered gendered. More precisely I find that my data question three widely held notions: first, that school rejection
versus school commitment can be regarded as signifiers of student masculinity versus
femininity, respectively; second, that the secondary school conflict between peer status
and academic success is generally and exclusively a boys’ conflict; and third, I discuss
whether self-worth-protective and compensatory functions of school rejection may be
understood as gender specific. In conclusion I suggest some implications for further
research, both on student masculinities and femininities, as well as on relations between
gender and “antischoolish” educational self-exclusion in secondary school.
Data and Method
The data discussed in this article are drawn from a one-year fieldwork in two
Norwegian public junior high schools,1 one rural and one urban school, during the academic year of 2000-2001.2 Comprising practically all 13 to 15-year-olds of their respective predominantly middle-class communities, the two schools have students from both
academically oriented and nonacademically oriented families.3 Both schools are completely dominated by students of ethnic Norwegian origin. This might be regarded as a
disadvantage, as the data are not representative of the multi-ethnic features that are
becoming increasingly normal for Norwegian schools, particularly in urban areas. On
the other hand, it reveals that in terms of relations to schoolwork and teachers, we find
equivalent social distinctions within an “all-Norwegian” context that discourses in
schools and media ascribe to ethnic or cultural differences among students.
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 465
Methods include 200 hours of observations of learning situations4 and informal
gatherings, informal conversations with students and teachers, as well as semistructured interviews with thirteen friendship groups (sixty students). To study processes
of both educational inclusion and exclusion, rather than limiting the study to the
“antischoolish” groups of students, all the 150 tenth graders5 from the graduating
forms were included in the observations. To ensure that those groups selected for
interviews actually represented a spectrum of different positions in the informal
social landscape of each school, the semistructured group interviews were not conducted until halfway through the fieldwork. This procedure also allowed for discussing preliminary interpretations with different groups of students as well as
basing the remaining part of the observations on data and issues highlighted in the
interviews. The topics of the group interviews included students’ accounts, evaluations, and opinions of various aspects of everyday life in their junior high school
(e.g., formal and informal rules and arrangements, subjects and teachers, work forms
and pedagogical methods, categorizations of own as well as other groups of
students) as well as future aspirations and out-of-school activities. As friendship
groups formed the interview setting, the group interviews did not provide “confessional” data from the hearts and minds of individual students but rather data on
“front stage” (Goffman 1959) ideologies, norms, as well as the ways in which different student groups presented and positioned themselves and other groups.
Capturing and Constructing “Student Styles”
To investigate aspects of school commitment and rejection among students, I
adopted a theoretical approach of learning situations as arenas of identity work and
presentations of self (Goffman 1959). This approach was informed by perspectives
emphasizing that to interact with each other we need to have a notion of who our cointeractionists are. Hence we must present ourselves in ways that are intelligible to
others as well as identify and ascribe to others social identities and categories. In this
identity work, we draw on a wide range of different social signs that constitute signifiers and symbols of identity, which are interpreted as symbols of our “character”
and attitudes, whether we like it or not (Album 1994, 104; Album 1996, 34-35;
Goffman 1959, 11; Goffman 1967, 114). Constructing ourselves and others as intelligible types (Berger and Luckmann 1967; Turner 1962) and kinds (Hacking 1999)
of persons, we apply classificatory principles marking and constructing participants
as of different and similar kinds (e.g., Bowker and Star 2002; Funck Ellehave 2004,
3). A main focus of the study then was to capture and explore decisive social categories and signifiers producing and marking differences among students in the social
world of junior high school and examine how these might influence students’ performances and self-presentations in learning situations in terms of school commitment and rejection.
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466 Men and Masculinities
Peer or friendship groups and cultures are widely used concepts in research on
school rejection, “antischoolishness,” and educational (self-)exclusion. A vast number
of studies spanning decades show how in-school groups and cultures constitute vital
references for identification, identity work, and notions of “we” and “others,” as well
as influence students’ performances in learning situations through in-group norms and
sanctions regarding orientation toward schoolwork and teachers. In line with this tradition, concepts of friendship groups and peer cultures constituted major elements of
the analytical starting point of the study.
However, the data gathered both through observations, informal conversations,
and group interviews pointed to a form of social categories on a different analytical
level than local friendship groups and peer cultures. First of all, comparing the two
different schools suggested that the various local student groups represented equivalent sets of distinct positions in the social landscape of both schools and their
respective forms. This was evident not only in terms of students’ self-presentations
in learning situations but also in the ways in which students discoursively positioned
and evaluated themselves and costudents according to orientations, preferences, and
signifiers related to dimensions held by the students to be the most significant distinctions between different types of students. Such dimensions included orientation
toward schoolwork and teachers, future aspirations, conduct, language, preferences
in music, out-of-school activities, and external symbols such as clothing,6 hairdos,
and accessories. Hence introducing to the analysis the concept of “student styles”
emerged as a means of grasping those significant distinctions between types or kinds
of students spanning schools, forms, and local peer groups.
The need for constructing a concept distinct from peer or friendship groups was
even accentuated by two additional observations: One may be identified and perceived as a distinct kind or type of student without actually being a member of a peer
or friendship group. This is commonly, but not exclusively, the case with students
identified as nerds. Moreover, local friendship groups may be formed by students
perceiving each other as of distinct styles, even though there are limits as to what and
how sharp differences are accepted within a local friendship group. Hence, although
there is a significant empirical overlap between student peer groups and student
styles, separating the two concepts is both empirically possible and analytically necessary.
The concept “student styles” is inspired by the students’ own discourse. Both in
interviews, informal conversations, and observations, students thematized and drew
my attention to the importance of finding and keeping your own style.7 The term also
reflects how students refer to available cultural models for being adolescent or young
(e.g., Ziehe 1989, 1992; Ziehe and Stubenrauch 1983)8 in their construction and
enactment of social categories in the social world of junior high school. Moreover,
in line with established theories on how we “do” (Garfinkel 1967; West and
Zimmermann 1987) and “perform” (Butler 1990) identity as well as gender, the style
concept conveys that there are cognitive, active, expressive, and normative aspects
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 467
of these student categories. To be associated with a style, one must have knowledge
of what signifiers and symbols are associated with different styles. A style is not
something you are, but something individuals must actively and repeatedly enact,
express, and confirm through presentations of self and use of symbols and signifiers.
A style is perceived to be something that an individual student to a certain extent
may choose according to “personal preferences.” However, each distinct style has its
own distinct rules regarding which symbols and signifiers are compatible and which
are definitely not. And though there are several different styles available, making use
of an acknowledged style is required to accomplish intelligible presentations of self
through shifting situational school settings.
Based on the ethnographic data, a set of student styles was constructed, including
the golden boy, geek, macho boy, nerd, golden girl, mouse, babe, and wildcat. The
various styles are elaborated from actor-oriented interpretations (Geertz 1973) as
well as categories that students make use of in their day-to-day school lives. These
include students’ own native concepts and “explanations-in-use” (Willis 1977, 62),
the categories and discourses they make use of when accounting for and evaluating
their own performances and those of others. However, the styles are also constructed,
sorted, processed, and renamed through an interpretive process in which I have
sought to highlight those aspects of signifiers, social meanings, and distinctions relevant of both schools and thus hopefully even of other secondary school context.
The following example illustrates the relation between the native and analytical categories: Students in both the schools studied would most likely be able to recognize
the student style I have called macho boy, even if they were given local names and
native categories such as “hobby gangstas,” “the tough ones,” “bad boys,” or in the
rural school, even the “tractor boys,” because of their preferred identifications with traditional farming masculinities. However, they all specialized in similar self-presentations, such as displaying traditionally “macho” conduct and language, signaling active
distancing and rejection of schoolwork and teachers, and expressing parallel opinions
of costudents. Though representing quite different communities and contexts, then,
equivalent student styles were identified in both schools. Those principles regarded by
students as significant distinctions between styles also spanned forms and schools, as
did the style-specific ranking of students in two separate hierarchies, formal school
achievement, and informal social status or popularity.
Student Styles in Junior High School
Though several styles are available in the junior high schools studied for this article, there is an explicit demand for consistency: Once associated with a specific style,
you are supposed to stick to it. Students have shared social notions of and implicit rules
for what performances, preferences, and other signifiers fit well together within one style,
and knowing as well as being able to display through practice the knowledge of these
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468 Men and Masculinities
rules is essential to being rendered a socially competent and intelligible junior high
school student. Those who cannot or do not risk being labeled wannabes. When a
student is perceived to perform inconsistently, costudents find that he or she has no
clear style, and they speak about it as embarrassing, humbling, disgraceful, and
pathetic. Thus students can’t “swap” traits within styles, but they may trade total
styles by shifting from one type of consistent behavior to another. When this happens, costudents must find explanations for the change. The students offer comprehensive and, in part, dramatic narratives for the cases they know about. When a
student is in a “transition phase,” others may find it frustrating to deal with him or
her, and he or she enters an implicit “social quarantine” lasting until he or she has
accomplished a repertoire consistent with his or her new style.
It is important to note that the styles must not be considered a set of “personality
types.” No individual is fully or only a style, and a style cannot capture all the
aspects of student identities. Like all analytical categorizations, this set of student
styles violates individual differences and variations. However, the student styles do
represent vital social categories structuring students’ identity work. They constitute
differentiated “packages” of norms and expectations regarding the use of signifiers
such as external symbols, preferences, and performances, including how to relate to
schoolwork and teachers. Hence conceptualizing the styles available seems crucial
when mapping the social world of junior high school as well as exploring aspects of
school commitment and school rejection.
The Golden Boy
A golden boy is polite, reasonable, and quite serious. Students of this style
describe themselves as extroverted and social. Golden boys can flirt with and be fancied by both golden girls and babes. He will cuddle the girls but not pinch their
behind like a macho boy might. A golden boy feels he has quite high status among
students of his grade level and feels that he dares to say, believe, and do more than
many others, and this applies to both teachers and costudents. He may, for example,
hold open a door for a teacher or compliment the teacher’s appearance without anybody calling it groveling. He also feels that his status allows him more than others
to experiment with clothing styles, without having comments flung after him.
Golden boys describe themselves as quite clever in school; most things are easy,
and some school activities are great fun. Even if he believes that in junior high school
academic performance is not really serious and doesn’t matter yet, he worries about
grades. He regards schoolwork as important for what he will be doing later in life.
The golden boy expresses strong loyalty to teachers and describes himself as positive about most things and as one who takes part in things and stuff. Teachers find that
golden boys are stable, can be trusted, and may call the golden boy group the backbone of the class. The golden boy has good relationships with many teachers; he cracks
jokes and laughs a lot with teachers. He feels that teachers place more responsibility
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 469
and trust in him than in many other students. It is really annoying but understandable
when teachers treat everybody the same and tighten the reins for everybody because
some students cannot manage to behave. When the golden boy disagrees with teachers, he will argue and discuss with them. However, he does not oppose them and their
decisions to any large degree, even when he finds that they are unfair or silly.
The Geek9
The geek never makes a spectacle of himself, whether informally at school or in
learning situations. He is one of those who, according to costudents associated with
other styles, is just there. During breaks he will sit together with one or a few other
geeks; as a group, geeks often have a corner of their own in the classroom where they
hang out. Costudents talk of the geek as calm, nice, pleasant, friendly, and proper.
The geek rarely picks a fight with teachers or costudents and, also according to himself, behaves properly.
Several geeks state that it is not really at school that they are themselves. They
emphasize that those who appear passive in school are not necessarily just as dull
out of school. According to geeks, it is outside of school that you really live. A geek
typically has out-of-school interests that he devotes himself, even during lessons,
whenever he gets the chance to pursue them without the teachers noticing it. Geeks’
interests are often found weird, by costudents, whether they include scale modeling
or special genres within music, film, or literature that nobody else has even heard of.
The geek speaks of himself as a middle-class person10 in school. He means that
he keeps up in school and responds when the teachers ask you questions about homework and stuff, but he is like not completely nerdy. He speaks of school as generally
quite OK. Schoolwork is something he does only because he has to, but he does do
what he has to. However, he is starting to feel bored now toward the end of junior
high school and fed up with homework. Moreover, he is tired of getting up early after
devoting the night to his favorite interest.
Many geeks have good relationships with one or a few male teachers, with whom
they share a common interest. However, there are many teachers that the geek has no
contact with. He evaluates them as OK enough, even though teachers rarely notice
the geek and occasionally forget his name.
The Macho Boy
The macho boy is highly visible in the school landscape both in and outside learning situations. Macho boy appears to be hard and using gestures, clothes, and other
external symbols that are perceived as traditionally “macho” signifiers. He describes
himself as cool, rough, different, and provocative.
When macho boys gather in groups, it is us lads who are kings of the hill, who
rule and are bosses. In school’s premises and landscapes, macho boy moves freely
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470 Men and Masculinities
and naturally, with a strutting walk and a loud voice speaking rough language. His
range of action is wide; the only good reason to come to school is that it is cool to
meet almost 300 people. Costudents do not always appreciate the macho boy’s outgoing behavior and his tendency to take center stage when he enters a scene, with
his big mouth and pick-on-others attitude.
Macho boy defines himself in opposition to those things he finds too proper,
childish, boring, weak, and straight. He contrasts the importance of social intelligence and life experience to books, subjects in school, and fixation on the syllabus.
In general he regards studying as bloody boring, and this here diploma it only counts
for your folks, nothing else. Costudents comment that it’s not that the macho boys
can’t achieve in school, rather, they just don’t take anything seriously. In their opinion, macho boys’ forms of expression thwart the content and substance: they actually have a lot of sensible stuff to say; it’s only they just roar and fling it out, like.
Not many teachers manage to get much enthusiasm out of the macho boys. They
believe the teachers are too square and do not understand them. Macho boys elaborate on how they represent a challenge for many teachers who are unable to get us
involved or keep us quiet.
The Nerd
The nerd is the only student style that is not restricted to one gender. There are
boy nerds and girl nerds. Nerds are primarily perceived as “academics” and less
“gendered” than other student types. The nerd style in junior high school is not
identical with the category “computer nerd,” which is widely used in other contexts.
A school nerd is primarily focused on and supremely good at schoolwork, good at
everything except physical education. Nerds are considered know-it-alls; they
always know the answer. They are often called whiz kids, but that is rarely positively intended. On the other hand, many students express open admiration of the
academic excellence of nerds and their unbeatable school performance. Nerds can
also be of much assistance to both teachers and students. Local nicknames such as
“the Oracle” indicate appreciation of the assistance nerds may provide. Nerds may
thus also be proud and self-ironic that they are not like everybody else, that they are
hung up on school and academic interests. A nerd may joke that he is cramming
Arabic in my spare time and may laugh about his own failed attempts at participating in the “healthy” out-of-school activities in which young people are expected to
take part.
However, nerds are often alone. There is often only one nerd in a class, and often
he or she has no complete membership in a friendship group. If nerds are part of a
group of friends at school, they take part as “schoolmate” and not as “best friend.”
A nerd often sits alone and does schoolwork, at his or her desk or perhaps in the
favorite room, the school library. Thus when teachers say with a sigh that other
students bring their break into class, nerds rather bring class into the break.
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Nerds are definitively not cool. Being dubbed a nerd if one does not perceive oneself as such is extremely hurtful, as it is seen as an insult. The term implies monomaniacal academic interest and poor informal social skills, as in the words of a macho boy:
they really don’t know how to behave among people. Even teachers may see the nerd as
being too much of a bookworm. Nerds rarely go to teachers for informal conversations
as golden girls or golden boys do and rarely express involvement or interest in topics
other than academic ones. If nerds develop informal relationships with teachers, it will
often be their common academic interest that is the focus. Nerds may also be critical of
the teachers they feel have inadequate academic skills or who are not serious.
The nerd feels it is important and fun to learn; it is hopeless that so much valuable time is spent by teachers attempting to gain control and quiet the class or reach
compromises with childish costudents; these airheads who can’t manage to be serious and don’t learn anything. When the majority of students cheer because the
teacher allows the class to sing songs in the German class instead of reviewing personal pronouns, the nerd will sigh resignedly and unhappily.
The Golden Girl
The golden girl speaks about herself as quite conscientious. She may not be as
totally hung up on school as the nerd is, but she is very devoted to getting good
grades. And she does. The golden girl talks a great deal about time pressure during
the interviews. It is difficult to have time to do everything well enough, schoolwork
and out-of-school activities, so there is some stress.
Typical teacher characteristics of the golden girl are that she flourishes in all subjects and she is tops. If the golden girl represents a worry or challenge to her teachers, it is when they find that she is putting too high demands on herself about her
own schoolwork or the teaching in class. Golden girls also have good relations to
many of the teachers. They talk a great deal with teachers during the breaks, about
academic subjects and other things.
The golden girl’s coolness factor is rarely high, and she spends most of her time
with other golden girls. They characterize themselves as slightly but not awfully
focused on boys, clothing, and appearance. Many see golden girls as precocious, an
adult in the body of an adolescent. The golden girl has good relationships with the
other students, except macho boys and wildcats, who are not afraid to throw a few
barbs here and there, suggesting, for example, that the golden girls fawn on teachers, are teacher’s pets and little darlings. Though not stating it directly in the face of
the golden girls, even students of other styles than the macho boy and wildcat speak
of teacher leniency and lack of sanctions against the golden girl when she is late or
forgets homework, her pencil case, or books. As they see it, the golden girl gets away
with more than others.
The golden girl enjoys much of her schoolwork, saying it is actually quite nice to
go to school. She nevertheless feels that many lessons are far too lax; there is much
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472 Men and Masculinities
nonsense, horsing around, and foolishness. In her opinion, teachers are also far too
gullible when it comes to the poor excuses offered by the macho boys and wildcats
when they have skipped school or are late.
Conversations among golden girls often revolve around academic subjects and
schoolwork. They will sit together during breaks and do their homework and spend
much of their time out of school doing schoolwork, alone or together.
The Mouse
Like the geek, the presence of the mouse is almost unnoticeable, both in learning
situations and informal socializing in school. With other mice, she forms small
groups of friends, often given local nicknames such as the quiet girls by teachers and
costudents. Among the girls in junior high school, students affiliated with the mouse
style are those with the smallest range of action. Like geek groups, they generally
stay in a corner of the classroom.
Costudents say that the mouse is nice and friendly, she does not mess around with
anybody. They also say she is a bit childish. She is in a way not one of the young
people; along with the geek, she is regarded more of a “tween” than a real teenager.
They will, for example, play in ways others feel they stopped doing when they left
primary school. The mouse plays with her friends and occasionally with the geeks. She
does not flirt in ways that other students recognize; to the others, the contact between
the mouse and the geek appears to be children’s games and not flirting. Girls affiliated
with the mouse style neither use makeup nor care much about jewelry and other decorations that are seen as traditional feminine symbols. If she puts on something extra,
it would more likely be a peace button, Rasta plaits, or a skater’s cap.
The mouse feels that she is an entirely regular student; there is nothing special
about her, and she does not stand out in any way. In much the same way as the geek
does, she nevertheless thematizes that those who are quiet in school are not necessarily quiet and boring as persons. When alone with her friends, she is much livelier
than when students of other styles are present. Out-of-school activities, such as
sports, may also provide settings for the mouse to be a totally different person.
The mouse speaks a great deal about boredom at school. When it comes to
schoolwork and relationships to teachers, students of the mouse style describe
changes from the second year of junior high. They used to study hard, but now they
have grown tired of school and become a lot less interested. They talk about long
days at school where much of what they do there seems so pointless and where there
is nothing to do during the breaks either. Mice also describe changes in informal
relationships between students that came suddenly in the second year of junior high
school and which they do not quite understand. They speak warmly and nostalgically
about primary school and the first year in junior high, when it was friendlier between
all the students, when everyone took care of everybody instead of the many cliques
and groups there are now.
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The mouse describes quiet defiance and resistance against teachers who are
unable to see her; she finds that golden girls get all the praise and attention. The
mouse often compares her handed-in assignments and other school performances
with those of the golden girl and finds that personal appearance is why the golden
girl always gets a slightly better grade than she does. She believes there is no point
in complaining, for the teachers do not listen anyway, and she also feels that when
she does, they perceive her as grouchy and whining.
The Babe
The babe is devoted to issues of dating, boys, clothing, and makeup. Other
students call her babe and chick. Macho boys nevertheless show their appreciation
of the emphasized feminine style and appearance of the babes, even if they feel
slightly exasperated at intrigues, gossip, and the other girl things.
When a babe does not have a boyfriend, she is looking for one. Friendship with her
female friends is nevertheless the most important thing for a babe. Babes’ friendship
groups are often wide and span school classes. Like the macho boys, babes have a wide
action range. The babe is regarded as the coolest among the girls in junior high school.
Other students find babes stuck-up and difficult to approach. Costudents describe
encountering a babe with her friends as a meeting with an exclusive club of VIPs. For
her part, a babe often finds, as a macho boy does, that many are afraid to talk to her.
Babes generally do just enough schoolwork to meet the minimum of teachers’
demands, carefully avoiding any effort that might be perceived as school commitment.
As macho boys do, the babes explicitly express that school attaches too much importance to academic studies and textbooks. There are undoubtedly more important things
in life than theory. In general, a babe thinks that it is quite OK to go to school, because
there she can doodle and dawdle as much as she usually does. It is important not to
take everything too seriously. Days in school are much better if you can have fun,
laugh, giggle, talk, and flirt: time to be a little bit crazy but in a nice way.
The babe is quite frustrated when it comes to many of her teachers. It is important that teachers have discipline, but they should be nice and friendly and strict at
the same time. They should be more humorous and accept that students fool around
with them. The babe believes that teachers have a best-before date. After a certain
point, they go grouchy and cease to understand young people. However, the babe
never fights teachers; rather she will shrug and smile resignedly to her friends.
The Wildcat
The wildcat meets worried, resigned, and annoyed teachers and costudents. This
is the only girl style characterized displaying overt opposition to and rejection of
teachers and costudents. Out of school, the wildcat spends her time with older and
dubious youths. Those who are perceived by others as running wild can be found
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474 Men and Masculinities
among the wildcats. The wildcat’s costudents speak about her as marching to a different drummer. The wildcat herself deals with her student status and school as a
peripheral and unimportant matter. She clearly states that she hates school; virtually
everything is boring. Costudents find that the wildcat’s poor school performance is
often something she chooses. It is not that she cannot perform; she simply does not
want to. Though many of them might seem a bit hopeless, they’re quite good at
school, really.
When wildcats are together, they rarely speak about anything to do with school,
except when discussing problems with teachers or reprimands for truancy they feel
are unfair. In their opinion, teachers do not understand them, meddle in things that
are not their business, and judge them far too quickly.
A wildcat often dresses and wears makeup and dyed hair that are perceived as far
removed from the mainstream, and other students believe that she always wants to
display how she is extreme, provocative, and different. Some wildcats are hardly in
touch with other students. If they show up at school at all, they spend their time with
other wildcats. The wildcat is not popular among costudents. She boasts of her cool
exploits, but the others feel that what she is doing is only pathetic. The other students
shift between calling her cow and bitch and say they feel sorry for her and are afraid
of her. Wildcats speak about the other students with a mixture of hostility and lack
of interest. In a wildcats’ narrative, it is us against everybody else and that includes
both teachers and costudents.
Student Styles as Structuring Categories
The student styles play a structuring role in students’ identity work. When first
having been associated with a particular student style, an individual will encounter
expectations as to what signifiers to display and how to behave in a given situation.
Consequently, the styles help students in their everyday work with accomplishing
intelligible presentations of self. They also provide social categories for interpreting
the performances of others and bring predictability to interaction. However, the
demand for consistency represents constraints, limiting the repertoires of signifiers
and performances available of any student associated with any style. Moreover, the
styles offer students distinct “viewpoints” in the “social class chart” and differentiate preferences and norms for one’s own performance as well as the evaluation of
others.11 Through talks of themselves and costudents, they apply discourses of “us”
and “them,” making use of other styles as references of who they are absolutely not.
Thus, by following the rules of style-consistent social practices and discourses,
students mark, construct, and maintain differences, divisions, and distinctions in the
social world of junior high school. There are several aspects of these styles that could
be interesting to explore. In this article, however, I focus specifically on issues
related to gendered aspects of school commitment and rejection.
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 475
Evidently, relation to schoolwork and teachers constitutes a main distinction
among styles. In style-homogeneous peer groups, the students are offered and elaborate reasons and justifications for being committed to, indifferent to, or rejecting of
school. The demand for style-consistent behaviors and orientations structures
students’ relation to teachers and schoolwork according to the following patterns:
The golden girl and the golden boy specialize in performances that are active and
display support vis-à-vis teachers and commitment to schoolwork and school values.
They often engage in and develop mutually positive relations with teachers and get
as well as take the opportunity to show their school adequate competence. Despite
their “subject sovereignty,” girl and boy nerds are typically not as socially active as
are the golden girl and the golden boy and so do not perform in ways that help establish or nourish relations with most of the teachers. The mouse and the geek perform
in ways interpreted as passively supportive or indifferent toward what is regarded as
“school official,” and they attract little attention and take up little of the social space
in learning situations. The babe, the wildcat, and the macho boy typically perform in
overtly school-rejecting ways that systematically exclude and deprive them of school
learning as well as rewarding relationships with teachers. For them, expressing
school commitment is highly incompatible with their style. Such performances
would lead costudents to wonder if they were playing such roles ironically—“having a laugh,” or if they were about to make a shift to another style. To accomplish
style-consistent self-presentations, students associated with these styles are left to
cultivate and specialize in “antischoolish,” self-excluding discourses and practices.
These findings suggest that multiple student styles represent significant in-school
elements in the sorting of students into different orientations toward school. If we recognize how the demand for consistency makes shifting from one style to another a
risky and arduous endeavor, the processes and factors operating when students are
recruited to different styles become crucial to the production of educational inequalities. When examining what mechanisms operate in making different groups of students
relate differently to school, existing school ethnographies have mainly turned to three
distinct principles of social classification: class, ethnicity/race, and gender, considered
by researchers as either competing or intersecting. As the data for this study were collected from practically an all-white, all-Norwegian school context, they give no basis
for exploring the role of race or ethnicity in the recruitment of students to different
student styles. On the other hand, these data underscore that relation to schoolwork and
teachers represents a vital social distinction dividing students into different styles even
within ethnically and racially homogenous secondary schools.
In terms of class, some of the distinctive discourses, attitudes, and signifiers of
student styles certainly echo elements that in some studies are identified as characteristics of class-specific student cultures (e.g., Mac an Ghaill 1994; Willis 1977). In my
study, I did not collect data on students’ class backgrounds allowing for a systematic
review of the significance of class for the recruitment of students to different styles.
However, school-committing student styles like the golden girl, golden boy, and nerd
were clearly dominated by students from academically oriented families, while school
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476 Men and Masculinities
rejecting student styles like the macho boy, wildcat, and babe largely recruited students
from nonacademically oriented families. On the other hand, there were also several
examples of styles recruiting students across class and sociocultural backgrounds.
Hence these are in line with findings from other studies, suggesting that even if class
is probably the most important factor influencing attainment at school (e.g., Gillborn
and Mirza 2000), the relation between class and “antischoolish” orientations and performances is by no means a clear-cut one (e.g., Francis 1999; Hammersley 1990; Mac
an Ghaill 1994; Martino 1999). Rather, the recruitment to different student styles
seems to be a process relatively autonomous from social class.
Including both the girl and boy styles available, this study provides a particularly
rich empirical basis for examining the significance of gender to students’ orientations
to schoolwork and teachers. Manifestly, the student styles of this study are highly gendered. The “ungenderedness” of the nerd style is an exception highlighting how gender performs a function as a distinctive principle of social classification determining
what student style is available to whom. When the student styles with their distinct
repertoires of signifiers and performances are structuring students’ performances, the
students are themselves indeed reproducing distinct masculinities and femininities,
understood as available and implicitly accepted versions of student femininity and
masculinity (Connell 1989, 59; Mac an Ghaill 1994, 52). Some of the student styles
definitely have elements in common with student masculinities and femininities portrayed in studies within the field of gender and education. However, considering relations between gender and students’ orientations toward school, a majority of
ethnographic reports are primarily concerned with investigating the role of masculinity in the production of “antischoolishness” and educational self-exclusion among
boys. I find that accounts from this tradition leave out important elements from the
story of gender and educational inclusion and exclusion in secondary school. In fact,
the set of multiple student styles suggests that gender is not a main classificatory category in terms of educational inclusion versus exclusion. Rather, it seems to challenge
certain ways in which school rejection is often rendered gendered. Specifically, my
data call for complicating and nuancing three commonly held notions of school rejection as a boys’ issue and a matter of masculinity: first, that school rejection versus
school commitment should be regarded as signifiers of student masculinity versus femininity, respectively; second, that the secondary school conflict between peer status and
academic success is generally a boys’ conflict; and third, that school rejection represents a self-worth protection strategy specific of reinforcing masculinity.
School Rejection Versus School Commitment:
Signifiers of Masculinity Versus Femininity?
Within existing research on masculinities in school, school rejection is widely
understood as something boys do to mark masculinity in a social context where
commitment to school is regarded as feminine. Despite the theoretical emphasis on
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 477
multiplicity within genders, and even though works within the literature on gender in
school do display a variety of groups of both schoolboys12 and schoolgirls,13 the dominant conclusion is a dual rather than multiple one. It is commonly stated that in secondary school (ages eleven to sixteen) learning and school commitment become
increasingly feminized and equated with being “girlish” and a “sissy”—whereas
schoolboy masculinity is characterized by toughness, sporty prowess, and resistance
to teachers and education (Epstein 1998; Francis 1999; Martino 1999; Renold 2004;
Swain 2005, 219). It is held that boys learn to establish their masculinity in opposition to femininity, and this involves rejection of what is regarded as feminine. As
school values and academic work are constructed as feminine or effeminate in secondary school, rejecting school is a way of rejecting femininity and thus serves as a
signifier of masculinity (e.g., Martino 1999, 244; Mills 2001; Reay 2002).
The macho boy style could be regarded as equivalent to the “laddish” groups of
schoolboys previously investigated in a vast number of ethnographies.14 And indeed,
if we limited our scope to the macho boy’s point of view, this might have been an
accurate description of how school commitment versus school rejection is rendered
gendered in secondary school. However, outlining a multiple set of student styles
render visible that neither school commitment nor school rejection are unambiguously gendered signifiers. Rather, “doing” commitment to, rejection of, and indifference toward school all seem to come in both feminine and masculine versions.
Thus, the notion that behaving “antischoolishly” serves as a signifier of masculinity in itself needs to be complicated. School rejection is not a general signifier of masculinity. Indeed, the golden boy represents an intelligible and accepted style for boys
to commit enthusiastically to school without their masculinity being questioned.
Moreover, the student styles of this study underscore that neither is school rejection
an exclusively masculine signifier. The obligation to perform in ways interpreted as
more or less openly rejecting and resisting teachers and schoolwork is certainly a fundamental characteristic for one of the boy styles: the macho boy. However, no less
than two of the available girl styles share this obligation: the wildcat and the babe. No
one would think of questioning the femininity of the babe; on the contrary, this
student style displays signifiers often identified as typical of hegemonic or emphasized femininity (Connell 1987). Though definitely marginalized for enacting a
“protest” or “rebel” femininity, the wildcat is not regarded “boyish.” The students
whose ways of “doing gender” are questioned are the nerd, mouse, and geek. In the
case of nerds, this goes for both girls and boys on account of their “unisex” appearance. As for the mouse and geek styles, failing gender performances is to a certain
extent interpreted as an expression of “failing adolescence,” a consequence of being
“late bloomers” with respect to puberty. In all these three cases, there are other signifiers than their ways of relating to schoolwork and teachers at play when students of
these styles are perceived as insufficiently masculine or feminine.
Hence, though macho boys may account explicitly for their rejection of school by
referring to their specific ideals of masculinity and discursively characterize school
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478 Men and Masculinities
commitment as effeminate, posing that school commitment in general is incompatible
with secondary school masculinity and typical of femininity would imply generalizing
one subculturally specific norm to all boys and thereby overlooking social distinctions
among both boys/masculinities and girls/femininities. At the same time, it represents
an overestimation of the significance of school rejection as a signifier of gender.
School Commitment Versus Peer Status—A Boys’ Conflict?
When accounting for the social map of junior high school, the students of this study
also explicitly refer to two different hierarchies in which they place themselves and each
other in positions of different ranks: a hierarchy of popularity and coolness (informal
peer status) as well as a hierarchy of achievement and degree of commitment to
school.15 The ranking of students follows a style-specific pattern, and only the geek and
the mouse occupy the same positions in both hierarchies. Roughly, the student styles of
macho boy, babe, and golden boy correspond with the top positions in the peer status
hierarchy. The styles of the mouse and geek occupy positions of middle or ordinary,
whereas nerds and wildcats are often perceived to be at the bottom or completely outside. Golden girls never rank high in terms of informal peer status, however, they vary
between middle and lowest positions in this study. Considering terms of school commitment and achievement, the golden girls, golden boys, and nerds occupy the top positions; the mouse and the geek sit somewhere in the middle; and the babe, the macho
boy, and the wildcat occupy the lower end of the scale.
The two hierarchies and their positions appear objective and self-evident when
the students speak about them. Even if the golden girl speaks ironically about how
the macho boy believes he is so cool, and even if the golden boy emphasizes that the
macho boy is cool only in quotation marks, they do not dispute the shared notion that
he is at the top of the coolness hierarchy. Even if the macho boy questions the value
of the knowledge the golden girl and nerd display, their status as clever and top
school achievers is incontestable. Hence, there is a congruency in terms of how
students position themselves (reflexively) and how they are positioned by others
(interactively) (Davies and Harré 1991; Renold 2004).
The students in my study hold that there is a certain inverse connection between
the positions of the two hierarchies: Those who want to be cool and hip care less
about school, whereas those who are most committed to schoolwork are not very
popular. Even if the cases of the golden boy and the wildcat illustrate that this opposition is not absolute, the notion of the two hierarchies as competing seems to be
commonly shared and reproduced. Several other studies report the existence of
informal hierarchies of peer status alongside formal hierarchies in secondary school
(e.g., Connell, Ashenden, Kessler, and Dowaett 1982; Flores-Gonzalez 2005;
Gordon, Holland, and Lahelma 2000; Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolla 2005; Swain
2005). However, few studies actually outline both formal and informal hierarchies
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 479
with their respective positions and the relations between them. Rather, many focus
on peer hierarchies among boys, and it is held that high peer status and school commitment is generally regarded as fundamentally incompatible (Haywood and Mac an
Ghaill 1996; Martino 1999; Renold 2004; Swain 2005).
It has been noted that combining “coolness” with academic success is possible for
some boys (Mac an Ghaill 1994; Martino 1999) and that, contrary to dominant discourses, achieving at school may be regarded as incompatible with being “cool”
among girls as well as among boys (Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolla 2005, 59). The
notion that the conflict between peer status and school commitment is typical and specific of boys is further complicated when drawing up the whole set of student styles
and the hierarchical positions with which they are associated. In effect, the only style
allowing for the combination of top positions in both hierarchies is a masculine one
(golden boy), whereas the macho boy, babe, and golden girl all are styles characterized
by the tension between school commitment and peer status. In other words, school
rejection is not required generally nor exclusively for boys to accomplish a high position in the informal peer status hierarchy. However, cultivating and excelling in performances interpreted as school rejecting may be required to secure in-group status for
“real” macho boys, wildcats, and babes within their style-specific peer groups.
School Rejection—A Boys’ Strategy for Protecting Masculinity?
So far in this article, students’ rejection of schoolwork and teachers has been analyzed as produced by institutionalized and expected orientations and behaviors for
certain student styles. This interpretation may be supplemented by an understanding
of school-rejecting discourses and practices as compensatory self-worth protection
strategies (Covington 1992, 1998; Covington and Beery 1976; Jackson 2002, 2003).
In a school system based on competitive and hierarchical sorting of individuals, the
style-specific practices and discourses of the macho boy, babe, and wildcat provide
resources for self-worth protection in terms of presenting and understanding themselves as devotedly rejecting rather than failing school. To a large extent, this is how
costudents and even teachers interpret their “antischoolishness”: It’s not that they are
not able to achieve at school but that they don’t bother.
I find that this approach may be adopted both when interpreting rejection or disinterest in achieving high peer status as well as high academic status. In fact, all
students make use of style-specific discourses accounting for their own particular
ranking in both formal and informal school hierarchies. Students of lower positions
make use of their distinct “antischoolish” discourses of rejecting or “not being that
interested” in schoolwork and/or “anticoolish” discourses of rejecting the value and
what it takes to be “cool and popular.” These style-specific discourses allow students
to account for their achievements in each hierarchy as a matter of their own preferences, norms, and values. The wildcats represent an especially expressive example;
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480 Men and Masculinities
from bottom positions in both hierarchies, they leave no doubt that they hate and
loath teachers, schoolwork, and all their costudents. In this perspective, the styles
provide intelligible and ready-to-use ways of protecting self-worth from any position
in school hierarchies. The trouble with such self-protecting strategies, however, is
that they reinforce failure by making it impossible to join the competition. Hence,
“antischoolishness” (as well as “anticoolishness”) may be regarded as both a source
and a compensatory function of failure.
The notion that school rejection may perform protective and compensatory functions has been put forward in several studies of schoolboys. Often, however, school
rejection and resistance seems to be reduced to primarily a device for restoring masculinity (Connell 1996; Mac an Ghaill 1994; Martino 1999). When boys experience
failure in formal school meritocracy and devaluation by teachers, it is their masculinity that is threatened and needs to be protected. Like crime is framed as a
“resource to construct particular masculinities” in society outside of school, disciplinary problems, rule breaking, and protesting are rendered central to the making of
masculinity for boys lacking other resources to do so (Connell 1996, 210, 220).
Jackson (2002, 2003) suggests that this view of “laddish” behavior within theories
of masculinities should be complemented by insights from theories of self-worth
protection. Pointing out the consistency of conduct identified within masculinity
studies as typically “laddish” or “macho” with behaviors identified within self-worth
theories as classic self-worth protection strategies typical of boys, she argues that the
function of such “disruptive behaviors” is twofold: protection of self-worth and reinforcement of masculinity—both threatened by the prospect of failing in the academic competition. Thus, “laddishness” among schoolboys might be seen as prompted
by both a fear of academic failure and fear of the “feminine” (Jackson 2002, 2003).
Again the set of multiple student styles gives reason to question the readiness with
which one interprets school-rejecting behavior as a matter of masculinity. Observing
patterns of school rejection even among girls rather suggests that insights provided by
theories of self-worth protection might shed additional light on “antischoolishness”
among both boys and girls. Considering “disruptive behaviors,” this is a characteristic
of the wildcat and the babe—as well as the macho boy. Girls adhering to these styles
perform their distinct ways of making noise in manners that disturb and interrupt
teachers and other students’ schoolwork. The babes’ most characteristic disruptive performances, “giggling” and “chatting,” make them the students most often separated by
the teachers. The wildcat loudly enters and leaves the classroom in the middle of the
lesson; snoring, moaning, and groaning from her desk; calling her teachers and fellow
students names; interrupting the teacher by shouting a comment to a friend at the other
side of the classroom; or taking over the class debate by yelling her arguments.
Thus, if the macho boy illustrates how rule breaking may be identified as “central to the making of masculinity” for boys lacking other resources to gain prestige,
pleasure, and to mark their difference (Connell 1996, 220), should then the blasé,
indifferent “rule-blindness” of the wildcat and the babe’s “giggling” and “chatting”
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 481
be regarded as the matter of reinforcing two distinct femininities for girls in a similarly underprivileged situation? Or does this cross-gendered observation contest any
gender approach to understanding disruptive behavior as a self-worth-protecting
strategy? An amplification of the gendered interpretation might be suggested, in line
with Brod (1994). He criticizes a tendency within the men’s studies to proceed as if
women were not a relevant part of the analysis, thus leading to dichotomizations of
the experiences of men and women. To avoid such dichotomizing, researchers
should not abandon the concepts of gender and masculinity. Rather, the cure lies in
taking a consistently relational approach to gender (Brod 1994; Connell and
Messerschmidt 2005, 837) and femininity/masculinity (Yates 1997).
It seems that such a relational approach calls for including school rejection and
“disruptive behavior” among both boys and girls in the analysis, while still sustaining a sensitivity to their gendered ways of “doing” it. A similar approach is taken by
Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2005, 53-4), emphasizing the importance of recognizing girls’ resistance and rejection, even if this may often be articulated in more
tacit ways, compared to the widely reported performances of “protest masculinities”
among boys. Indeed, such an approach may offer us a more precise tool for grasping what is actually a matter of gender when considering students’ school rejection:
Although “disruptive behavior” is not in itself structured through gender oppositions, there are indeed gender-specific norms for how boys and girls may perform it.
The student styles provide students with gender-specific ways of performing commitment to, rejection of, and indifference toward school according to implicitly
accepted student femininities and masculinities. Hence, the distinct disruptive
behaviors of “rule breaking,” “rule blindness,” and “giggling”/”chatting” might be
seen as masculinized and feminized versions of “doing” self-worth protection producing the same underprivileged outcome: Though the routes are paved with
diversely gendered signifiers and performances, what is waiting at the end of the
road is the same: exclusion from school learning and positive relations to teachers.
Conclusions
In this account from two Norwegian junior high schools, it is held that students
are offered a set of styles, representing differentiated social categories for intelligible and available self-presentations. Any style provides a distinct “package” of
expected social practices as well as discourses accounting for their own ranking in
the formal hierarchy of school achievement and the informal hierarchy of social status. Meeting the obligation of style-consistent conduct and discourses, students
actively take part in the construction, cultivation, and reproduction of differences and
distinctions in the social world of junior high school. This includes maintaining relationships to schoolwork and teachers as a vital demarcation line between students of
different styles.
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482 Men and Masculinities
Students of any style have their repertoires of performances and signifiers limited
by the informal but nevertheless strict notions of style-specific “packages” and the
demand for consistency. Thus, all students could benefit from efforts to deconstruct
these social categories structuring students’ identity work in junior high school.
However, considering educational exclusion, the styles of the wildcat, babe, and
macho boy represent the most acute concern because of the obligation to cultivate
and perform “antischoolishness” that is put on their adherents. Recognizing that
these styles generate school rejection among both boys and girls accentuates that it
takes more than confronting secondary school masculinities to challenge problems
of “antischoolishness” and educational self-exclusion.
In this article, I have argued that the set of student styles demonstrates that there
is more to school rejection than “laddishness” and “macho” masculinity. I have
argued that what appear to be connections between school rejection and masculinity
when we limit our focus to schoolboys adhering to the macho boy style become
more complicated when other student styles are included in the analysis. First of all,
school rejection is neither restricted to nor typical of boys, just as school commitment is neither restricted to nor typical of girls. Rather, in the Norwegian junior high
schools studied for this article, students are offered implicitly accepted student styles
representing feminine as well as masculine versions of “doing” school rejection,
school commitment, and indifference toward school. Moreover, I have argued that
the widely identified conflict between hierarchies of peer status versus academic
success and commitment should not be regarded as a specific matter of masculinity.
Finally, I have attempted to show that if school rejection is examined in terms of selfworth protection strategies, there is no reason to confine the possible application of
these insights to the “laddish” ways of doing it.
The student styles of this article display a wider range of variations within each
gender in terms of students’ relation toward schoolwork and teachers than is commonly accounted for. Hence, some implications might be suggested regarding investigations both of student femininities and masculinities as well as of the phenomenon
of “antischoolishness” and educational self-exclusion. One implication is that the
theoretical intention and emphasis on multiplicity within studies of masculinities
and femininities in school should be followed up in empirical and analytical practice. This suggestion echoes a recommendation recently put forward by Connell and
Messerschmidt (2005). They stress the importance to future masculinity studies of
incorporating a more holistic understanding of gender hierarchy. This includes
explicit recognition of the internal complexity and contradictions of masculinities
(Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 852), giving much closer attention to femininities and women’s (girls’) identity and practice, and analyzing the interplay of femininities and masculinities (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 848). The multiple
student styles of this study highlight the relevance of this recommendation to the
study of student masculinities and femininities. Not only should more research on
student femininities be included, but also the variations within available styles for
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 483
both genders need more empirical and analytical attention. If not, one risks painting
one-dimensional portraits of student masculinities and femininities, reproducing
some of the very binary and unambiguously gendered assumptions that the multiple
model was intended to challenge.
A second implication proposed by this set of multiple student styles is that a more
complex account of gender is needed even in the exploration of educational selfexclusion and “antischoolishness.” As factors related to socioeconomic status are
highly significant in examining issues affecting students’ educational performance, the
important question to address in discussions of gender and educational disadvantage
may be “which boys” and “which girls” (Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolla 2005, 7). The
aim of this article to complicate asserted relations between school rejection and masculinity is not to undermine the project within masculinity studies of challenging current constructions of hegemonic masculinity. Nevertheless, there might be reasons for
raising the question whether masculinity theories have currently a too hegemonic position in our understanding of school rejection. Indeed, a gender-sensitive analytical
approach is crucial to the examination of how and why school rejection is shaped,
expressed, and acted out in gender-specific ways, according to implicitly accepted
masculinities and femininities. However, exclusively employing a masculinity
approach may lead us to painting one-dimensional analytic pictures of the relations
between gender and students’ orientations toward schoolwork and teachers when not
accounting for the range of student styles in the school setting studied. When “antischoolish” student styles are observed among both girls and boys, this reminds us that
school rejection is neither an inherent characteristic of students of a particular gender
nor a gender-specific phenomenon in itself. Thus, mapping out the variety of student
styles suggests that there are limits to how far constructions of masculinity—and even
gender—may account for why secondary schools, across a multitude of local contexts,
seem to produce groups of students actively cultivating “antischoolishness” and
thereby becoming complicit in their own educational exclusion.
Notes
1. Norwegian junior high school is compulsory, public, and coeducational and rarely tracks students
formally by educational attainment.
2. This study was originally part of a Norwegian Research Council Evaluation Programme of a school
reform implemented from 1997. Results from the study are previously published in Lyng (2004a, 2004b).
3. In the rural school district, differences in families’ academic aspirations are commonly accounted
for in terms of the categories “station kids” versus “farm kids.” “Station kids” roughly include students
living in relatively new houses near the train station whose parents are originally from outside the district,
have additional education to secondary school, and commonly commute to jobs in more urban areas.
“Farm kids” include those students living in their family farm and whose lack of aspirations in academic
subjects is stereotypically referred to in anecdotal ways such as “What do I need to learn English for? You
don’t need that sitting behind a cow’s ass.” The urban school district is regarded as an attractive and affluent part of the city. However, the high incomes stem from both professional jobs as well as jobs related
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484 Men and Masculinities
to skilled trades and crafts. Hence, though both districts are typically middle-class in terms of economic
resources and income, both districts are divided with regard to parents’ education, cultural capital
(Bourdieu 1984), and academic aspirations.
4. Settings where some kind of schoolwork is meant to be undertaken.
5. In Norwegian junior high school, students are in Grades 8 through 10 and thirteen to sixteen years
of age. After graduating from junior high school, students pursue different types of higher secondary education, by choice and academic achievement.
6. School uniform is not used in Norwegian schools.
7. Words, expressions, and exclamations marked in italics are quotations from student interviews.
8. Within youth cultural theory, “style” is used as a concept varying from collective, class-based subcultural expressions of authenticity (e.g., Clarke 1976; Hebdige 1979) to styles of consumption reflexively negotiated in individualized identity projects (e.g. Kjeldgaard 2006; Muggleton 2000; Ziehe 1992).
In this article, the concept of “student styles” refers to categories that, though partly expressed through
elements both related to class and/or current patterns of consumption, are specifically linked to the secondary school setting—to being and “doing” student in junior high school.
9. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek) offers an extensive list of differing and in part competing definitions demonstrating how connotations to the geek term have changed over the years and vary
even between different English-speaking regions. In the junior high school contexts studied for this article,
the geek category is broader and more mainstream than when used among older adolescents or adults. Being
devoted to an interest other than school, sports, or girls is an acceptable “boyish” orientation at this age.
Thus, even if some of the junior high school geeks will continue to be regarded geeks after they leave school,
many of them will not. The nerd category is subject to a similar discussion as the geek, including how to
separate between the two (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd). The distinction most important to
note in these junior high school contexts is that although the object of the geeks’ devotion is rather unpredictable, the nerd is devoted to and considered brilliant at subjects valued by the formal curriculum.
10. This refers not to class in a sociological term but rather a mediocre position both in hierarchies of
school achievement and commitment as well as social peer status.
11. The terms chosen here are highly inspired by parts of Bourdieu’s (1984) description of habitus. In
some ways, one might consider conceptualizing student styles in terms of “student habituses” specific of
the “field” of junior high school. On the other hand, because of the openness for changing from one style
to another as well as the relative autonomous relation between social class and student style, such a conceptualization would be inapt.
12. See, for example, Kessler et al. (1985), Connell (1989), Mac an Ghaill (1994), Haywood (1996), Gilbert
and Gilbert (1998), Martino (1999), Kenway and Willis (1998), Renold (2004), and Swain (2005, 2006).
13. See, for example, Furlong (1976), Lambart (1976), Meyenn (1980), Mac an Ghaill (1994),
Ambjörnsson (2004), Reay (2001), Arnot and Gubb (2001), and Kelly, Pomerantz, and Currie (2005).
14. Most notably to Mac an Ghaill’s (1994) macho lads, but corresponding groups of boys may also
be found in, for example, Willis (1977), Kessler et al. (1985), Walker (1988), Connell (1989), Epstein
(1997, 1998), and Martino (1999).
15. The relationship between commitment and achievement is definitely not a clear-cut one. Some
might achieve good grades throughout junior high school without being particularly committed to schoolwork. The symbolically important dimension distinguishing different styles is degree of commitment, as
this is interpreted as signifiers of “chosen” style. As we have seen, students make a distinction between
school potential and actual achievement, for example, when noting that those students affiliated to the
wildcat and macho boy styles could achieve good grades if only they’d bothered to commit to and involve
themselves in schoolwork. Some wildcats are even held to be particularly academically gifted by teachers and costudents. Other studies similarly report how boys equivalent to the macho boy style might be
regarded “really smart” and potential academic achievers if they had only tried instead of “acting dumb”
(Jackson 2002, 43; Martino 1999, 249-51; Warrington, Younger, and Williams 2000).
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Lyng / “Antischoolishness” and Masculinity 485
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Selma Therese Lyng is a sociologist working as a researcher at the Work Research Institute of Oslo. In
addition to educational inclusion and exclusion, her current projects include studies of work-family
balance in “high commitment” work organizations.
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