Theorising Inner-City Masculinities: ‘race’, class, gender and education by Louise Archer and Hiromi Yamashita allows the reader to engage with the question of how to theorise diverse, working class, male students and their masculinity within a inner-city, multicultural environment. The articles data is drawn from a small scale study done at an inner city school in London conducted by Archer and Yamashita. 11 boys between the ages of 15 and 16 with different ethnical backgrounds (three African boys, three Caribbean boys, two Bengali boys, one Sikh boy, one Cypriot boy and one white British boy) and grades ranging from D to F, were all interviewed and asked a series of questions on the topic of masculinity. A common thread between the interviews
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A popular explanation for this would be the boys underachievement in school as a result of poor behaviour in and around the school, however this is not always the case. Many of the boys just simply viewed school as very low on their priority list. Instead, they viewed things such as pop culture, music, the local area, gender and racialized relationships much higher resulting in a ‘bad boy’ label. Much of the music is centered around ‘gangster’ identities, drug taking, heterosexual prowess, material items and public hypervisibility. This often comes off to the public as uneducated and a lack of respect mainly towards females and authority figures. However, the boys typically use this ‘bad boy’ label to garner respect from other males and a sense of power into …show more content…
A link between continuing school (post secondary) and shaking the ‘bad boy’ label was found and as a result many of the boys were reluctant to continue schooling. One boy described these identities as “ A source of enjoyment, friendship, fun and power/status” however they’re also associated with inertia, education failure and deflect. While not all feel this way many of the boys stated they have regretted previous actions such as skipping school to hangout with friends and are aware of limited benefits of the ‘bad boy’ label in comparison to academic success and future job
A popular explanation for this would be the boys underachievement in school as a result of poor behaviour in and around the school, however this is not always the case. Many of the boys just simply viewed school as very low on their priority list. Instead, they viewed things such as pop culture, music, the local area, gender and racialized relationships much higher resulting in a ‘bad boy’ label. Much of the music is centered around ‘gangster’ identities, drug taking, heterosexual prowess, material items and public hypervisibility. This often comes off to the public as uneducated and a lack of respect mainly towards females and authority figures. However, the boys typically use this ‘bad boy’ label to garner respect from other males and a sense of power into …show more content…
A link between continuing school (post secondary) and shaking the ‘bad boy’ label was found and as a result many of the boys were reluctant to continue schooling. One boy described these identities as “ A source of enjoyment, friendship, fun and power/status” however they’re also associated with inertia, education failure and deflect. While not all feel this way many of the boys stated they have regretted previous actions such as skipping school to hangout with friends and are aware of limited benefits of the ‘bad boy’ label in comparison to academic success and future job