Adolescent masculinities and juvenile justice in France

Abstract

ABSTRACTAdolescents brought before the justice system are frequently perceived as a social group that is representative of a form of hegemonic masculinity combining deviance, violence, and risk-taking. However, in-depth analysis of legal case files in a juvenile court in France shows the ambivalence of these young men's masculinities. Even though certain actions and certain situations might seem to relate to a form of hegemonic masculinity, it is important to place them in the broader context of the marginalization of youths from lower-class backgrounds, who make up the overwhelming majority of cases dealt with by juvenile justice. Moreover, certain case files show that these adolescents embody certain forms of vulnerability and modes of self-presentation that directly counter the notion of hegemonic masculinity. The research presented in this article encourages a more complex analysis of deviant adolescent masculinities, by examining the homogenizing logics at work in the justice system, which tend to wrongly reduce these adolescents' trajectories to fixed and homogeneous demonstrations of masculinity.