Building a Brotherhood? A Teacher Researcher’s Study of the Construction of Gender at an All-Boys Catholic Secondary School

• In Event: Practitioner Researchers: Hybrid Roles in the Generation and Use of Research Knowledge

Abstract

Objectives and Significance to the Field

Since the mid 1990s, educational researchers have turned their attention to boys’ social and academic needs. Citing lagging literacy rates, decreased academic achievement, and the “emerging science of sex differences” (Sax, 2006), some have advocated for gender-specific pedagogy, renewing interest in single-sex education (e.g., Salomone, 2006).

Despite this interest, single-sex classrooms remain relatively unstudied, even in Catholic schools, which have a long history of single-sex education. Practitioner research in this area is almost nonexistent, yet it can generate and disseminate insider knowledge that directly improves the educational sites from which it is emerges. This study addresses a gap in the field by focusing on the knowledge perspectives of teacher researcher investigating how gender and masculinity are constructed at an all-boys school.

Perspectives and Analysis

As a female English teacher at the school, I studied what roles single-sex learning environments played in boys’ development. I worked from several compatible theoretical frameworks: Connell’s (2005) theory of multiple masculinities and how schools help construct them; the National Council of Teachers of English’s guidelines for a gender-balanced curriculum; and Weiler’s (2009) feminist theory of cultural reproduction, which is “concerned with the ways in which schools function to reproduce gender divisions and oppression” (p. 219). As a practitioner researcher, I worked from an inquiry stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) to look closely at how my students and I constructed gender and to examine whether and how my classroom practice complied with and/or challenged the school’s gender regime.

Data Sources and Findings

Viewing my classroom as a community of practice wherein gender is constructed and students are not only learning English but also what it means to be male community members (Paechter, 2003), I collected data over three years. Data sources include my teacher journal, official school documents, parent/teacher communications, teacher and student interviews, student surveys and work, and classroom observations.

I analyzed the data using a narrative approach, which “gives prominence to human agency” and “is well suited to studies of subjectivity and identity” (Riessman, 1994, p. 5). Most importantly, I discovered that while school administrators regularly spoke of fostering a “brotherhood” to establish a sense of community, in actuality the school perpetuated what Connell (2005) called “hegemonic masculinity,” or the stereotypical notion of what it means to be male. This narrow view inevitably leaves certain community members feeling devalued. Second, although I believe I am aware of issues related to gender equity, and I aim to construct lesson plans that prompt my students to interrogate and challenge school and societal inequities, I found that some of my classroom discourse and interactions with students furthered the gender regime of the school in ways I did not intend nor realize before this study. Third, while the single-sex learning environment affected students’ gender construction, for most students, several factors outside of school were more salient in their identity development, suggesting that single-sex schooling is one of many factors to consider when addressing boys’ social and academic needs.

Author

• Kirstin Pesola McEachern, Boston College