Masculinity and Education

The uncertain, complex and problematic relationships between masculinity and education have come to occupy a prominent position within the sociology of education in recent years. This collection of articles brings together a range of different perspectives, offering both empirical and theoretical contributions to our understanding of this subject.

The articles seek to broaden our sociological understanding by considering masculinities in relation to a variety of educational setting and contexts. These include the role of football in the playground of a junior school, the question of why more boys study AS-level mathematics in England, the changing rhetoric of education ministers, and attempts to increase the number of male primary school teachers in Australia. The collection also engages with the broader context of gender politics and educational theory and the volume concludes with a study of the move away from class analysis within educational theories in recent decades, taking English white working class masculinity as its main focus.

The collection offers a perceptive insight into a crucial and current area within the sociology of education.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Amanda Coffey is Professor in Social Sciences and Dean of Education in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests centre on ethnographic and qualitative research, and include work on young people and social change, gender and education and working lives. Amanda Coffey’s publications include Researching Young People, with Hall (2011), Key Themes in Qualitative Research, with Atkinson and Delamont (2003), Education and Social Change (2001) and The Ethnographic Self (1999).

David James is Professor in Social Sciences at Cardiff University, UK and Director of the ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Centre. His research interests focus on the relationship between education and social inequalities. David James’ publications include White Middle Class Identities and Urban Schooling, with Reay and Crozier (2011), Improving Learning Cultures in Further Education, with Biesta (2007) and Bourdieu and Education: Acts of Practical Theory, with Grenfell (1999).