Maintaining Masculinity: The Case of Upper-Class Boys in a Therapeutic Boarding School

• In Event: 100 - Regular Session. Continuity and Change in Contemporary Masculinities

Abstract

In the last twenty years, a multi-billion dollar “therapeutic boarding school” industry has emerged for America’s troubled upper-class youth. This article examines the therapeutic models that have become prominent in these programs and the ways they might conflict with the patriarchal, hegemonically masculine nature of elite culture. How do upper-class adolescents, particularly boys, experience forms of therapy that promote dispositions that conflict with ruling-class masculinity? To address this question, I use nine months of fieldwork and 34 in depth interviews conducted as part of a larger project at a Southwestern therapeutic boarding school. Findings from this work show that the therapeutic models that underlie young men’s experiences at a TBS elicit overtly feminine qualities, and result in the construction of a “hybrid masculinity.” However, the way this identity is understood, embodied, and mobilized by elite male students continues to perpetuate gender hierarchies and masculine dominance.

Author

• Jessica Ann Pfaffendorf, University of Arizona