Masculinity and respect in flux: Olli's story

Abstract

This study examines change and the conditions of change in the masculinity of Olli, a working-class Finnish school boy. It explores respect as a status bound to masculine reputation, resources for obtaining respect in gendered identity work, and the negotiation of power in peer relations. I discuss how a ‘banal balancer’ discourse – a local, normalised, culturally idealised discourse and the most common discourse of school boy masculinity – has the power to induce school boys to balance their acquisition of the respect and peer likeability dimensions of status. Olli's story illustrates why locating oneself or being located in a ‘toughie’ discourse, in which the pursuit of respect through fear and violence is present, has limits in terms of peer relations and why it is crucial to make room for aspirational hegemony in schools instead of a dominant, regressive form of hegemony.