Football Culture in an Australian School Setting: The Construction of Masculine Identity

Abstract

This paper argues that teenage males draw variously on signifying contexts in football to construct their understandings of who they 'are'. As such, football is a widely revered human activity that is strongly implicated in the construction of masculine identity. By examining how football has evolved as a site of controlled masculinity, and how involvement in football is imbued with a dominant set of meanings about what constitutes a 'normal' male, this article will indicate how identity formation for young males is a precarious process. Furthermore, by drawing predominantly on the research of Burgess [(1992) TGs, dags and normals: the construction of masculinity in a ruling-class school (unpublished honours thesis, Griffith University, Brisbane); (1998) Struggle and performance: the construction and identity for teenage males (unpublished PhD thesis, Griffith University, Gold Coast)], in an Australian school setting, it will illustrate that for teenage males there is a seductive resonance in the narrative that violence and toughness in football is indicative of a natural predisposition in 'real' males. Contrary to popular belief though, performances of toughness and violence in sport are not evidence of a preexisting masculine condition but are the constituents of a reiterative process that equates sporting prowess with a particular typology of self. Consequently, involvement in sport is not a guarantee of an oppressive presentation of self, but sport's signifying logic makes such a presentation of self a realisable and accessible option.