Challenging Sexism? Gender and Ethnicity in the Secondary School

Abstract

This article discusses understandings of girls confronting sexism in a Swedish multiethnic urban school. The empirical study includes school observations, conversations and formal group interviews with 15–16‐year‐old pupils from seven classes in four schools. The article provides an analysis of one of the schools, where the fieldwork showed gender to be frequently on the agenda. In particular, girls confronted what they deemed to be sexist and derogatory remarks from male classmates. Teachers were also seen to comment on gender during lessons and to act on what they agreed to be sexism among pupils. However, gender was largely understood as important to cultural differences and dealt with as related to pupils’ family and ethnic background. This is explored in the article as well as the various, partly conflicting ideas on gender expressed by different groups of pupils.