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Investigating the role of identity versatility in the discursive production of working-class boyhood, learner identities and educational engagement
Stahl, Garth Asplund, Stig-Börje Scholes, Laura
Stahl, Garth
Asplund, Stig-Börje
Scholes, Laura
Abstract
Internationally, boys from working-class backgrounds are often the most likely to disengage from their formal education. Research on the educational experience of working-class boys has focused heavily on their identity barriers, often positioning these young men as either vulnerable or volatile in their formal education. Social theorists have sought to address the historical and cultural embedded (gendered) practices which influence the identity work of working-class boys. This conceptual article contributes to the study of working-class boyhood and education through first synthesizing key themes present in the historic and contemporary literature before adopting a feminist post-structural stance to consider how these themes are informed by our understandings of the discursive production of masculinities. Then, in the second half of the paper, we make visible what has been at the margins in the scholarship – identity versatility – which we define as contextual and agentic adaptation. Attention to versatility, we feel, offers the potential for a nuanced analysis regarding working-class boyhood, learner identities and educational engagement.
Keywords
discursive construction, post-structural identities, working-class boyhood
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies
Book
Volume
46
Issue
4
Page Range
622-642
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (ILSTE)
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled