All-boys Secondary School Research Articles

‘Good morning boys’: Fa’afāfine and Fakaleiti experiences of Cisgenderism at an all-boys secondary school

ABSTRACT This article explores the schooling experiences of 12 fa’afāfine and fakaleiti who attended an all-boys faith-based secondary school in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Fa’afāfine are Samoan, and fakaleiti Tongans who are assigned male at birth, but enact varying degrees and types of behaviour deemed as feminine. There are currently no in-depth qualitative studies that examine the schooling experiences of these young people. Within the existing literature the experiences of fa’afāfine and fakaleiti are typically subsumed under the umbrella of transgender and/or non-binary students. This study examines participants’ recollections of daily experiences of being fa’afāfine and fakaleiti at an all-boys school where any expression of femininity was frequently disallowed and denigrated. In this highly masculinised environment, participants describe the struggle to be ‘like-women’ and the cisgender discrimination they faced. Incidents of bullying, physical assault and marginalisation from teachers and students along with the pathologisation and erasure of their identities within school curricula and practices were daily occurrences. These accounts contribute to an emerging and broader picture of schools as cisgender spaces, in which educational structures and processes reinforce the idea there are only two genders, and that gender is based on sex assigned at birth.

Epistemic Curiosity and Situational Interest: Distant Cousins or Identical Twins?

To what extent are epistemic curiosity and situational interest different indicators for the same underlying psychological mechanism? To answer this question, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we administered measures of epistemic curiosity and situational interest to 158 students from an all-boys secondary school. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis to find out whether a one-factor or a two-factor solution provides the best fit to the data. The findings supported a one-factor solution. A two-factor solution was only satisfactorily supported if one accepted that the two latent constructs were correlated .99. Study 2 was an experiment in which we experimentally manipulated the amount of prior knowledge 148 students had about a particular thermodynamic phenomenon. Epistemic curiosity and situational interest were each measured four times: before a text was studied, before and after a problem was presented, and after a second text was read. The treatment group studied a text explaining the problem after the problem was presented, whereas the control group read it before the problem was presented. The control group, in other words, gained prior knowledge about the problem. In the treatment group, both epistemic curiosity and situational interest significantly increased while being confronted with the problem. This was not the case in the control group. In addition, only in the treatment group scores on both measures significantly decreased after the text explaining the problem was studied. These findings support a knowledge gap account of both situational interest and epistemic curiosity, suggesting an identical underlying psychological mechanism.

Emergent social practices of Singapore students: The role of laughter and humour in educational gameplay

Abstract This paper discusses our investigation of the role of humour and laughter when students interacted with DinoPlates in the classrooms of an all-boys secondary school in Singapore. DinoPlates simulates and lets learners control Earth’s geological processes and search for dinosaur fossils to support playful learning of Earth science concepts. We contend that the learners transformed classroom social practices during gameplay, which exhibited their playful engagement by shaping their own activities in the classroom. Findings indicate that different pairs playing the game altered the intended goals and outcomes of the game; these instances are often accompanied by humour and laughter, and transformed the social structure and solidarity of the classroom. We discuss the opportunities that the design of DinoPlates afforded for emergent social practices in gameplay and the roles that learners’ laughter and humour played in transforming their practices.

Being barefoot. Prevalence at home, in school and during sport: a cross-sectional survey of 714 New Zealand secondary school boys

BackgroundIt may be assumed that a combination of culture, climate and economic resource are the major reasons that non-industrialised countries have a higher prevalence of barefoot activity. New Zealand is an industrialised country with comparable resources to that of many European countries; however, it seems to remain socially acceptable to carry out barefoot activities. A chance observation of students competing barefoot on a tartan track, prompted us to determine the prevalence of barefoot activity in an all-boys secondary school in Auckland New Zealand.MethodAn 11-question survey was administered at an Auckland boys secondary school, of high socioeconomic status, to determine the footwear habits of students (n = 714) during: a) daily life b) school life (c) physical education class and (d) sport. To classify students as habitually barefoot or shod, students were asked to select whether they were barefoot most of the time (2-points), half of the time (1-point) or none of the time (0-points) in three settings: around the house, during sport and during school. A score of ≥3 was required to be considered habitually barefoot. Participants were also asked to specify, when running at their most recent athletics event (100 m – 3000 m) on a track, whether they ran barefoot, in shoes, in spikes or another type of footwear. Finally, participants were asked to indicate if leg pain had interrupted running during the previous 12-months. Analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS.Results45% (95% CI: 41.5–49.5%) of the participants in our sample were classified as habitually barefoot. More than half of the sample reported being barefoot most of the time at home (n = 404, 56.6%) and during PE class (n = 420, 58.8%). Over 50% of the sample reported being barefoot half of the time or more during sport (n = 380, 53.2%). A smaller amount went to the supermarket (n = 140, 19.6%) or took the bus (n = 59, 8.3%) whilst barefoot around half of the time or more. The percentage of barefoot competitors declined with increasing distance: 100 m (46.5%), 200 m (41.8%), 400 m (38%), 800 m (31%), 1500 m (31%) and 3000 m (20%). The prevalence of leg pain interfering with running was 23.5%. There was no difference in the prevalence of leg pain between those classified as habitually barefoot and shod (Χ2(1, N = 603) = 0.005, p = 0.946).ConclusionThe results of this survey demonstrate that over 50% of students at an all-boys secondary school in Auckland, of high socioeconomic status, are barefoot at home, during physical education and sport half of the time or more. These results may point towards a cultural difference between New Zealand and other modern industrialised countries.

The politics of pleasure: an ethnographic examination exploring the dominance of the multi-activity sport-based physical education model

Kirk warns that physical education (PE) exists in a precarious situation as the dominance of the multi-activity sport-techniques model, and its associated problems, threatens the long-term educational survival of PE. Yet he also notes that although the model is problematic it is highly resistant to change. In this paper, we draw on the results of a year-long visual ethnography at an all-boys secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand to examine the workings of power that legitimate this model of PE. Our findings illustrate that the school conflates PE and sport, to position PE as an appropriate masculine endeavour and valued source of enjoyment, as it articulates with good health, social development and competitiveness. We argue that student experiences of pleasure within PE—as co-constitutive with discourses of fitness, health, sport and masculinity—(re)produce the multi-activity sport-based form of PE as educationally appropriate and socioculturally relevant, thus making the model somewhat resistant to change. We stress that our study should not be read as a vindication of this PE model.

Sport and Thought. Football as therapy: A year in the life of an inner city project

‘Sport and Thought. Football as therapy, A year in the life of an inner city project’ is a paper based on a way of working that fuses football and psychodynamic thinking. The project was set up at inner city all-boys secondary school in London and was created in response to the growing need for a therapeutic intervention which was accessible to adolescent boys who would not engage via more traditional therapeutic routes. The project works with adolescents experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties. Sport and Thought is a way of working with adolescents that fuses the sport of football, psychodynamic thinking and theory to create a space to encourage thought and act as a catalyst to promote emotional and behavioural change. Sport and Thought believes an individual’s reactions within a sporting context are no different to a societal one, and thus the sport of football can be used to enable participants to consider their own emotional and behavioural traits, and the underlying reasoning behind them.

Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov (1932–2013): The Life of a Tangut Studies Pioneer

On 24 May 2013 the world lost an outstanding researcher and natural-born talent, Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov. Evgenij Ivanovich was born on 22 June 1932 in the small town of Sarapul on the River Kama in Udmurtia. His father, Ivan Kuzmich Kychanov, was an engineer land manager, who at the time was working as head of the Kama Basin Agrarian Brigade (Zemotriad); his mother, Galina Pavlovna (nee Zylyova), was a kindergarten teacher. Evgenij Ivanovich’s parents came from families of lower middle-class craftsmen and sturdy peasants, who had experienced firsthand all the hardships of revolution, wars and the dispossession of the kulaks. In 1950, after finishing the No 16 all-boys secondary school in his native town, Evgenij Kychanov set off for Leningrad with the intention of enrolling in either the History or Philology Faculty of Leningrad State University. However, due to a serendipitous coincidence he entered the Oriental Faculty instead. Before submitting his documents, Evgenij Ivanovich met a third-year student, Boris Mikhailovich Novikov (now an Associate Professor at St Petersburg State University), in the main building and the two struck up a conversation. After some brief consideration, the newcomer decided to devote himself to the study of Chinese history. Evgenij Ivanovich’s student years were tough, like those of the whole post-war generation, but full of a spirit of romance and true friendship. His group included others who would become prominent scholars – Vladislav Semyonovich Kuznetsov, Vitalij Yepifanovich Larichev, Ernst Vladimirovich Shavkunov and Yurij Vladimirovich Zuev – and Evgenij Ivanovich’s bonds of warm comradeship with them would last a lifetime. Kychanov enjoyed learning and it came easily to him. He was one of the most brilliant students not only in his Faculty, but in the whole University. For his diploma thesis, “The Peasant Movement in Guangdong and Hunan Provinces during the First Civil Revolutionary War” (supervisor L. A. Berezny), he was awarded the University’s first prize. In the spring of 1955, the Oriental Faculty recommended Evgenij Ivanovich for a post-graduate position in the Oriental Manuscripts Section of the Institute of Oriental Studies (USSR Academy of Sciences) specialising in Tangut Studies. After passing the competitive entrance

The implementation of a rites of passage programme into a boys’ secondary school

A perception that some boys are performing poorly both socially and academically is evident in the research literature. This perception has been linked to broader concerns around the transition of boys to manhood. Schools are increasingly paying attention to their role in this transition. This paper discusses the implementation of a rites of passage programme to a New Zealand all-boys secondary school. Experiences of staff and students involved in the programme are reported using their own words as far as possible. Of particular note is the impact of the programme on the teacher–student relationship. The study raises some significant points for consideration, applicable beyond the specific programme discussed and relevant to all schools concerned about supporting boys.

A five-stage process for the development and validation of a systematic observation instrument

The primary purpose of this study was to develop and validate a System for Observing the Teaching of Games in Physical Education (SOTG-PE). Primary pilot testing of the SOTG-PE was conducted in a large, selective, all-boys secondary school in the north-west of England. Two hundred and eighty three pupils aged 11–16 volunteered as participants for the pilot testing phase of this study. The SOTG-PE coded 1379 minutes of physical education games lessons across three games categories, including invasion, net/wall and striking and fielding. In addition, the teaching interactions of four full-time teachers of physical education and one pre-service teacher were also coded. The inter-observer and intra-observer mean re-test coefficients suggest that the SOTG-PE is valid for evaluating and recording child activity, lesson context and teacher interactions during various physical education games lessons in the UK.

Prince Charming Has Perfect White Teeth: Performativity and Media Education

This paper argues that Judith Butler's post-structuralist theory of performativity provides a valuable tool for understanding how students might contest prevailing hegemonic gender discourses in media education classrooms. It suggests an alternative to structuralist ‘empowerment’ and ‘critical pedagogy’ approaches, which continue to motivate many media educators, despite serious questions being asked about their effectiveness. The paper draws on data collected from a unit of work about video games, completed by Year 10 students at an all-boys secondary school in Brisbane. It argues that many media-related activities fail to elicit genuinely ‘critical’ responses because they are complicit in the regulation of hegemonic discourses. It suggests that teachers are more likely to create the potential for variation in their students' gender performances if activities are dialogic and open-ended, and avoid placing emphasis on discourses of excellence and competition.

Attitudes Towards Homosexuality in the Seventeenth-Century New England Colonies

The first play I attended at my all-boys secondary school was Marlowe's Dr Faustus. The lower boys crammed in the gallery were not wholly engaged by grandiloquent Elizabethan cadences, nor by the laboriously unfolding plot. What stopped the whispering and fidgeting and then brought the house down was the scene in which Faustus, as reward for selling his soul, is allowed to kiss the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy. In this production the hell-bent Doctor had to make do with the prettiest boy in the school. Wild whoops, mating calls, indecent suggestions for further action rained down from the gallery. At the curtain call Helen again stole the show. Next morning, the Headmaster, a Scottish Presbyterian whose zeal for the Lord was second only to his zeal for rugby football, rebuked the school for the shameful scenes and prescribed a three-mile run to cool our ardour.