Through language, children participate actively in the construction of meanings around sexuality, which is governed unequally according to gender. This article examines the articulation of the social constructions of sexuality and gender with the pictorial and narrative representations of boys and girls from 9 to 11 years of age from four public…

In this paper, we contribute to the understandings of young masculinities by turning attention to the South African schooling primary school context. In the context of scarcity of interventions around violence in the primary school, we focus on how young boys construct, negotiate and experience violence. Notwithstanding dominant discourses around…

School playgrounds are critical arenas wherein children's gender performances unfold, and 'games' of gender subordination or domination transpire. Theoretically predicated on Butlerian and Baradian gender performativity approaches, this qualitative study analyses how children negotiate and perform gender, exploring the material-discursive effects…

The close association between science and masculinity has been widely discussed, yet few studies have focused on boys' negotiation with, and participation in, school science. This paper seeks to trouble monolithic notions of the link between science and masculinity, arguing that the "ideal science student" is a classed, racialized, and…

This paper is based on qualitative research data from a project investigating early childhood boys' constructions of masculinities in relation to sport, health and the body. The focus group data, with 33 boys, has been collected in each of the boys' first three years at school. It is part of the data that will be collected over eight years with…