The role of sport in the construction of masculinities in an English independent junior school

Abstract

This article concerns the central role of organised sport in the construction of masculinity amongst Year 6 boys (10 to 11-year-olds) at an English independent (fee-paying) junior school. The data come from an ethnographic study of one year's duration that investigated constructions of masculinity among two classes. The formal school culture consciously promoted a range of sports/games and made them an integral part of a competitive, masculine regime, although the informal peer-group culture gave primacy to football. The leading form of masculinity embodied was the sporty boy, which was sanctioned by the school, and this gave it a powerful cultural and social authority. The body played a vital part: groups of boys were classified and divided by their physicality/athleticism, which restricted the opportunities for most boys to compete for this ideal. Although I have taken the terms ‘hegemonic’ ‘complicit’ and ‘subordinated’ forms of masculinity’ from Connell, I found it necessary to propose another form and relation of masculinity, which I have called ‘personalised’. Personalised forms were made up from the majority of boys who appeared content to pursue their own types of identity and did not aspire to, or imitate, the leading form. Only a very few of the boys who were not sporty were subordinated by the dominant regime, although this was also due to a series of other factors which are further explored.