This article was downloaded by: [University of Hong Kong Libraries]On: 27 September 2013, At: 05:21Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

British Journal of Sociology ofEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbse20

Men accessing education: masculinities,identifications and wideningparticipationPenny Jane Burke aa University of London, UKPublished online: 02 Jul 2007.

To cite this article: Penny Jane Burke (2007) Men accessing education: masculinities,identifications and widening participation, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28:4, 411-424,DOI: 10.1080/01425690701369335

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01425690701369335

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

British Journal of Sociology of EducationVol. 28, No. 4, July 2007, pp. 411–424

ISSN 0142-5692 (print)/ISSN 1465-3346 (online)/07/040411–14© 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/01425690701369335

Men accessing education: masculinities, identifications and widening participationPenny Jane Burke*University of London, UKTaylor and Francis LtdCBSE_A_236825.sgm10.1080/01425690701369335British Journal of Sociology of Education0142-5692 (print)/1465-3346 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis284000000July 2007Dr PennyJane Burkep.burke@ioe.ac.uk

Drawing on ESRC-funded research (RES-000-22-0832), this article examines the accounts ofmen participating in London access and foundation programmes in relation to their shiftingmasculine identifications. I consider how the men’s early memories of schooling shape theirstudent masculinities. Their accounts are contextualised in relation to hegemonic discourses ofwidening participation and neo-liberalism. Drawing on feminist critique, I pay attention to themen’s self-regulating practices in their struggle to be recognised as deserving of higher educationaccess and participation. The interconnections and contradictions within men’s identificationsacross a range of differences are considered in relation to their experiences and imaginaries ofaccessing higher education.

Introduction

The greatest controversy over boys and girls has been in education, beginning in the early1990s, when misguided feminists declared a highly publicized “girl crisis.” The eventssurrounding this new study show that this is still true, as Duke is apparently unwilling toacknowledge and publicize what its research clearly shows—it is boys who are in crisis. (LosAngeles Times; Sacks, 2005)

Young women have over-taken and now out-perform young men at school, at universityand in many workplaces. (Daily Mail; Chesshyre, 2001)

These quotes from the press reflect contemporary shifts in gender relations leadingto local and global panics about the position of men in neoliberal capitalist societies.The increasing number of women taking up degree-level study across over-developed countries has led to fears and uncertainties about men’s social positionand status (Gough & Peace, 2000). Indeed, women’s successes and achievements

*School of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Institute of Education, University ofLondon, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: P.Burke@ioe.ac.uk

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

412 P. J. Burke

are continually presented as a threat to men’s social position, often expressed interms of a ‘crisis of masculinity’. Such anxieties can be traced back to discoursesabout the ‘underachievement of boys’ appearing in the international press in the1990s and receiving extensive attention and critique by sociologists (Mac an Ghaill,1994; Epstein et al. 1998a, b; Francis, 1999; Raphael Reed, 1999). More recently,there have been fears that the university, historically seen as a space for men, is beingtaken over by women (Quinn, 2003). The claims being made about women’s risingposition in higher education (HE) are becoming an increasingly important part ofwidening educational participation agendas, and have raised concerns about men’saccess to HE.

Within this wider context, I examine the accounts of men who are aspiring tobecome undergraduate students through participating in alternative entry courses inLondon. The men’s educational memories illuminate their student identities acrossa range of differences that impact their experiences and imaginaries including age,class, ethnicity and nationality as well as gender. In making linkages at the micro-level of personal experience and auto/biography, I understand the men as sociallypositioned and discursively constituted subjects within educational sites. The men’seducational memories shed light on the ‘psychic landscape’ (Reay, 2005) of tempo-ral and spatial student masculinities. What is the impact of personal histories andselective memories on the production of a masculine self as student? The men’smemories highlight the complexity of masculinities, as deeply connected to ‘struc-tures of feeling’, and the implications of changing identifications for men’s access toHE (Kuhn cited in Skeggs, 1997). In analysing the men’s accounts, I draw on criti-cal and feminist theories of class, race and gender and education to examine theways that mis/recognised selves strive towards respectable personhoods througheducational participation (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Connell, 1995, 2000; Fordham,1996; Skeggs, 1997, 2004; Epstein et al., 1998a; Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Reay,2001, 2002, 2005; Archer, 2003; Archer & Leathwood, 2003; Archer & Yamashita,2003; Weis, 2003).

This study contributes to sociological discussions about the ways that ‘a range ofstudent masculinities’ are constructed through contemporary further and HE spaces(Mac an Ghaill, 1994, p. 15) and the ways these masculinities are connected to widerinequalities and misrecognitions (Fraser, 1997). Similar to Weiss (2003, p. 114),‘there was no overtly oppositional behaviour lodged against school knowledge andculture’ in the men’s accounts of their school experiences. However, the men did notconstruct themselves as boys who worked hard at school either. Indeed, most of themen cited laziness as the key obstacle to their educational success both at school andin their current courses, resonant of feminist literature on boys and schooling (Miller,1996; Epstein et al., 1998b). This literature has argued that boys, in order to avoidbeing harassed or bullied, must avoid, or appear to avoid, academic work (Epsteinet al., 1998b; Jackson, 2002; Weis, 2003). In cases where young boys do work hard,it has been argued that there are significant psychic costs, drawing attention to theproblematic privileging of masculinity and its implications for boys’ and men’sacademic achievement (Reay, 2002).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 413

Methodology

The article draws on an ESRC-funded study of 38 men taking access and foundationprogrammes in three further education colleges and one university in London. Thein-depth interviews focused on the men’s educational memories, histories and expe-riences. The men’s educational memories illuminate how identities are an ongoingproject of becoming (Hall, 1992). Both interviewers were women and so there areimportant issues to keep in mind about the ways the men might have fashioned theiraccounts for and with the female interviewers. The men’s accounts are not analysedas reflecting an objective reality, but as discursive and partial accounts, which areproduced in the specific situation of an interview. It was explained to the men in theinterview that pseudonyms would be used, for the sake of anonymity, and each partic-ipant was invited to select their own. Many of the younger men chose names associatedwith computer games, such as ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Dragon’. Interestingly, most of themen selected their pseudonym with minimal consideration and hesitation, providingclues into their sense of self. The men were also asked to self-define their class position.

The men were selected under two sets of criteria: that they were categorised by thecollege/university as home students, and that they were participating in an Access toHE (AHE) course, a Foundation Degree or, in the case of the university, a Scienceand Engineering Foundation Programme (SEFP). The colleges and university wereselected for their London location, their demographic differences and because theyoffered access and/or foundation programmes. It is noteworthy that although they areall home students, the men’s countries of origin include Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh,Columbia, Kenya, Sudan, Belize, Spain, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Angola, Jamaica, Ghana,Portugal, Poland, Italy, Cyprus and England. Their ages ranged from 18 to 54 years.The men’s generational and national diversity offers an analytic richness to a criticalexamination of changing and contradictory student masculinities.

Discourses of widening participation, neo-liberalism and masculinity

In the United Kingdom, widening participation (WP) is a key focus of HE policy,although it takes different forms in England, Scotland and Wales, as all educationalissues are now devolved. This study is located in the London region and thereforesheds light on WP in the English policy context, although it is also important to bearin mind that WP is contested across different localised sites. However, there arebroader contexts to bring to light in an examination of masculine identities and WP,not least the ‘neo-liberal project in which class differences are taken to have meltedaway’ (Walkerdine, 2003, p. 239). Ken Jones argues that the New Labour govern-ment’s focus on education is deeply connected to the ‘logic of neo-liberal globalisa-tion’ and from an absolute acceptance of the marketplace (Jones, 1999, p. 238). Withnotions of the market at the centre of government policy, the key role of HE isconstructed as enhancing employability, entrepreneurialism, economic competitive-ness and flexibility (Morley, 1999; Thompson, 2000; Burke, 2002; Archer et al.,2003a; Bowl, 2003).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

414 P. J. Burke

Neoliberalism attempts to erase issues of social identity and inequality and positionsindividual students as ‘consumers’ of, and equal players in, the free market of HE.WP operates around contradictory claims; on the one hand, the claim of the ‘classlesssociety’ or the ‘death of class’ and, on the other, the powerful ways that ‘class is invokedin moves to draw young people from deprived areas into HE’ (Lawler, 2005, p. 798).In similar ways, issues of gender equality are often seen as irrelevant in WP policydebates but reappear as a national concern in relation to the perceived crisis of mascu-linity and the claim that women are taking over the university (Quinn, 2003). WPpolicy is a part of the broader technologies of self-regulation in which subjects cometo understand themselves as responsible for the production of a self with the skills andqualities required to succeed in the new economy (Walkerdine, 2003, p. 239).

The men in this study represent HE participation as a crucial tool in the project ofregulating and improving the self. In describing the reasons HE is important to them,they construct notions of an ideal and respectable form of masculinity.

Because, as you know, basically when you’ve got an education you are more respected.(Ali, aged 19, Middle Eastern, middle class, SEFP)

Skeggs (1997), in her work on working-class women in further education, hasconceptualised ‘respectability’ as deeply intertwined with classed and gendered iden-tities. The women in her study disidentify with class in their struggle to establish arespectable femininity. The men in this study similarly disidentify with class, and theiraspirations to become HE students are linked to the desire for an ideal form ofrespectable masculinity. The constitution of respectability relies on a distancing fromphysical labour and ‘being common’ as Gladiator explains:

[Being a student] feels good. Because working is not good. Working is very hard and phys-ical, compared to learning. I don’t know, I’ve always had this thing, when I walk along theroad., as either being common or intellectual, just the two groups. And I know it soundshorrible, but I don’t like mixing with the common or, I don’t know, choose people. So I’vealways wanted to be in the higher learning class, so being amongst all these students hereis great. (Gladiator, aged 19, Italian, ‘comfortable’, SEFP)

Gladiator, who describes his class positioning as ‘comfortable’, refuses to articulatean explicit class position (Savage, 2000). Yet he implies a strong disidentification withworking-class masculinity, making a powerful link between learning and being ‘higherclass’. His account is reminiscent of Mac an Ghaill’s ‘Academic Achievers’ who‘appeared to be destined for an ambiguous class position’ and who accepted the“mental-manual’ division of labour’, identifying with ‘mental’ production’ (Mac anGhaill, 1994, p. 63). This is echoed by many of the men in the study, for examplePaul, who describes himself as middle class but from a ‘lower-class’ background:

As soon as you say to friends—I’m a mature student, full-time—it’s o-o-oh. So they callme an intellectual git now. I feel a bit brainier. Is that the word? Brainier? I feel more intel-lectual, although it’s only been a week. But yeah, I do feel different. I think there’s a statusto being a student isn’t there? What are you? I’m a bricklayer. What are you? Oh, I’m astudent. I think there’s a bit of social status there. (Paul. aged 39, white English, working/middle class, AHE)

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 415

Gladiator and Paul connect being a student to being higher class and having socialstatus, and this is a key narrative running through their accounts of accessing HE.The men, although positioned across different and competing formations of identity,bring into play an imagined hegemonic masculinity in their struggle towards successand respectability. They construct respectable men as university educated, not doingphysical work, having a well-paid job, being comfortable but not too wealthy, andhaving a home and a stable family life.

I hope I will be settled with a proper profession and have a family. Yeah, I am lookingforward to it. I am really concerned about my future. I know it is almost getting late, butit is not too bad, too late. At least if I attain this level and try and achieve a bit further, Icould have a comfortable life, that is all I want, and that is what I am looking forward to.(Sammy, aged 48, Black African, working class, AHE)

I think a job that just pays well, just to manage my family and house. Expenses and …maybe just occasionally holidays and things. That’s fine. Because really my religion doessay that you don’t really need much, and if you do have much you just give, so you areequal to everyone. So I just don’t want too much. Just enough will be fine. (Dragon, aged18, British Pakistani, middle class, SEFP)

The men aspire to modest versions of masculinity, striving towards an idealisedidentity even when it is at odds with and in stark contrast to their lived realities.Connell explains that ‘many men live in a state of some tension with, or distancefrom, the hegemonic masculinity of their culture or community’ (Connell, 2000,p. 11). Indeed, the men in this study do not belong to a single culture or community,but move across different discursive fields in their daily lives and in their educationalhistories. Hall’s (1992) concept of ‘identification’ helps to illuminate the struggles themen experience in processes of becoming across contradictory cultural expectations,fields and discourses of what it means to be a man and a student. Competingdiscourses of masculinity shape the men’s changing identifications across their educa-tional memories and operate at the level of regulation and surveillance as well asemotion, pleasure and desire (Raphael Reed, 1999). Earlier memories of painfulschool experiences shape feelings about educational participation in adult life.

The Bully: regulating un/desirable forms of masculinity

Due to my bullying at secondary school I wasn’t very keen, I found it very difficult to eventhink about going to college until literally now. Even though I had no worries because Iknew they were adult … yeah, I pretty much felt it was still like secondary school in myhead. But now I know it’s not. It was quite difficult to me, coming to college. (Marcus,aged 21, Greek Cypriot, working class, AHE)

How do the men’s earlier constructions of their masculine identities structure theiraccess to and participation in HE? In their accounts of their memories of schooling,there were a number of competing discourses of masculinity at play. These weretied in with complex classed, generational, national and cultural identifications. Aclose examination of the men’s accounts demonstrates that the development ofWP strategies requires an understanding of changing identities and experiences at

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

416 P. J. Burke

discursive and cultural levels to further illuminate the ways that men dis/identify asstudents.

A recurring theme emerging from the data is bullying, which is part of an ‘ensembleof self-fashioning practices for regulating desirable forms of masculinity’ (Martino,1999, p. 246). Bullying differentiates masculinity ‘through a set of practices or tech-niques for fashioning a particular demeanour and mode of relating’ (Martino, 1999,p. 246). The men’s accounts of bullying show that masculinities are relational and‘developed in specific institutional contexts in relation to and against each other’(Mac an Ghaill, 1994, p. 61). For Paul, bullying was a significant memory thatconstructed his masculinity in relation to his friends and against Other ‘disruptive’boys. He suggests that being a bully is a matter of ‘environment’ and belonging, aswell as structure and agency. Creating an ethical argument for being a bully, Paulpoints out that he made moral choices about whom to and whom not to bully:

Primary school was great. I loved primary school. I went off the rails in secondary school.I was a bully, all my friends were bullies. We never picked on weak kids, we picked on …we went to school in East London, and we used to get a lot of children from a lot of disrup-tive boys from other schools, so basically we used to put them in their place. I’m not proudof being a bully, but it’s just the environment that we was brought up in, especially, I comefrom a poor family, there was eight of us.

In a reflexive account of his school experience, Paul draws on, and contests, widereducational discourses that construct individual bullies as the problem. His accountplaces the problem at the structural level of poverty and environment. Implying narra-tives of male territorialism, his memory is constructed in relation to masculine schoolhierarchies between boys that necessitate dominant males put ‘disruptive boys’ intheir place. He strongly disidentifies with ‘disruptive boys’, conjuring up widerdiscourses of the ‘anomalous beast’, the ‘aggressively masculine, anti-school, anti-social young male’ (Delamont, 2000, p. 96). His account is a delicately managed re-working of his memories in the struggle to construct a respectable masculinity that isclearly delineated from the denigrated Other.

I was the second oldest and I still actually learned, I still done me education. I had to leaveschool early, but I left school with five O levels. But the first couple of years of secondaryschool I was a bully. Because when you go to secondary school you are nervous. You leaveprimary school and you go to the big, giant, big school. But all our friends, all their broth-ers were like the bullies in that school, so we was always protected. And we just basically,like the hierarchy thing, we sort of took their mantle, and we turned into the bullies, whichI regret now, because I actually met some of the people we used to bully, and they said—you put our lives through hell. And that’s probably why I’m doing this course now. To re-amend what I was like when I was younger. You know. Not saying it’s like I’m doing thisout of penance. I’m doing it because I want to bring something back, because I want toget out of this course and eventually I want to be a teacher.

Paul’s account is multi-layered and he positions himself between conflictingdiscourses of masculinity. The literature on boys and schooling theorises the struggleof bringing together working-class masculinities and educational success in inner-cityschools and the enormous psychic effects attached to this struggle (Epstein et al.,

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 417

1998b; Reay, 2002). Boys must continually avoid working hard at school or otherwiserisk being bullied or harassed (Epstein et al., 1998b). Paul does not remember workinghard at school but does talk about how he always read a book at bedtime and declareshis love of books throughout his account. Martino explains that boys who read are:

located on the ‘outside’ through a set of normalising practices which work to reinforce abinary oppositional structuring of gender relations. Within such a hetero/sexist regime,certain practices or behaviours, such as reading or expressing emotions, appear to conflictwith what boys consider to be appropriate masculine behaviour. (Martino, 1999, p. 245)

In an attempt to redefine a respectable student masculinity, seen as worthy of HEaccess, Paul straddles two sets of discordant discourses, re/fashioning his early memo-ries of who he was and redefining who he is now. This is tied in with discourses thatconstruct the ‘WP student’ as having natural ability yet always posing a threat to HEstandards. This discourse is illustrated clearly in New Labour’s HE White Paper:

Our overriding priority is to ensure that as we expand HE places, we ensure that the expan-sion is of an appropriate quality and type to meet the demands of employers and the needsof the economy and students. We believe that the economy needs more work focuseddegrees—those, like our new foundation degrees, that offer specific, job-related skills. Wewant to see expansion in two-year, work-focused foundation degrees; and in maturestudents in the workforce developing their skills. As we do this, we will maintain the qualitystandards required for access to university, both safeguarding the standards of traditionalhonours degrees and promoting a step-change in the quality and reputation of work-focused courses. (Department for Education and Skills, 2003, p. 64)

WP is repeatedly juxtaposed in government policy texts with a concern about main-taining standards thus constructing a logical connection between Other student iden-tities and an anticipated contamination of HE. ‘Ability’ is constructed through white,middle-class, masculine values and judgements, further implicating the ‘WP student’in disciplinary regimes of remaking and regulating the self (Gillborn & Youdell,2000). The project of remaking the self is a fragile one in which the subject is inconstant danger of loss (Reay, 2001). It is within this context that Paul carefullyattempts to reconfigure his identity, highlighting that he always was an academicachiever. Interestingly, he makes a direct link between being a bully, accessing educa-tion and aspiring to become a teacher, a form of repentance for an earlier self.

Unlike Paul, Marcus, a 21-year-old AHE student from a Greek Cypriot back-ground, identified with bullying from the perspective of victimisation and relates thisto being ‘a bit different’. This resulted in his education being disrupted, although hemanaged to ‘catch up’ and achieve some GCSEs.

Well, I was quite a big guy, as I grew up, I was a lot bigger than I am now, and because ofmy glasses and stuff like that, I was a bit different. It was just someone to bully really. Isuffered from it for quite a few years, I think it was four years, so I missed quite a lot of itdue to the bullying, and by the end of the year, year five had to catch up a year, a lot ofthem, that’s how I passed quite a few GCSEs. (Marcus)

Marcus’s account of bullying illuminates how constructions of difference createsymbolic divisions and boundaries between hierarchical formations of masculinity.Such processes are key to understanding the men’s identity positions within the

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

418 P. J. Burke

discursive sites of educational institutions where boys construct ‘embodied identities’(Archer & Yamashita, 2003). In Marcus’s account his embodied identity is producedthrough his physical size and his glasses. Wearing glasses has long been a culturalsignifier in Anglo-American society for that which is not machismo; negative associ-ations with men constructed as ‘the nerd’ or ‘the swot’, or the negative constructionsof feminised identities such as ‘the spinster’. Yet, his account supports common-senseexplanations about WP because, despite this experience of ‘suffering’, he explains, hestill managed to pass ‘quite a few GCSEs’ and then go on to participate in an AHEcourse. Marcus takes up neo-liberal discourses in which subjects are ‘totally respon-sible for their own destiny’ (Walkerdine, 2003). ‘Successful’ individuals as those whoare determined to rise above their problems through their own motivation, hard workand discipline.

Disciplining the self

Because essentially I think I’m lazy at heart. (Bob, aged 28, white European, working class,SEFP)

The problem of ‘being lazy’ or ‘not getting the work done’ is a significant theme inmost of the men’s accounts. This is echoed in the body of literature on boys, mascu-linities and schooling and connected to theories of ‘laddish’ masculinities, which havebeen seen as a key barrier to school achievement and progress (for example, Mac anGhaill, 1994; Francis, 1999). Jackson has argued that constructions of ‘laddishness’as ‘being lazy’ operate as a ‘self-worth protection strategy’, because ‘academic abilityis inextricably intertwined with feelings of self-worth’ (Jackson, 2002, p. 585). Jacksonexplains that one strategy to protect self-worth is to ‘avoid the implications of failure’so that ‘the perceived causes of failure, should failure occur, remain ambiguous owingto the possibility that not trying is the culprit rather than incompetency’ (Covington,2000, p. 182 cited in Jackson, 2002, p. 585). Jackson identifies a number of avoidancestrategies that can be deployed, and this helps to explain the men’s accounts, both oftheir memories at school and their experiences as adult students.

Interviewer: Can you think of any problems that might get in the way of you finishingthe course?

Bruce: Me being lazy. That is the only thing. (Aged 20, white English, workingclass, Foundation Degree)

The men, constructing themselves as naturally lazy, are positioned, and positionthemselves, within neoliberal discourses that demand a self-governing, self-determin-ing subject who has the skills to overcome his or her natural flaws. Feminist work onthe construction of an ideal neo-liberal subject has examined the ways competinggendered characteristics are at play in educational policy texts. For example, Francis(2005) interrogates Walkerdine’s (2003) claim that the ideal neoliberal subject privi-leges feminised characteristics of diligence, conformity and passivity. Francis arguesthat as well as these feminised aspects, the ideal neoliberal subject recuperates tradi-tional masculinised characteristics including risk-taking, independence, questioning

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 419

and being innovative. Francis also argues that the acceptability of ‘the lad’ in hege-monic discourses of masculinity is being subtly contested through new formations ofthe self. The subject is expected to control or overcome what might be perceived asnatural male flaws such as inability to organise or a tendency towards laziness. Indeed,the contestation of laddishness might contribute to assumptions that forms of femi-ninity are now preferred over masculinity leading to the perceived crisis of masculinity.

Feminist work also pays attention to the classed construction of the self-governingsubject, which operates to hide class and gender politics and reprivileges the (middle-class, masculine) value of self-determination (Skeggs, 2004). Walkerdine claims that‘the neo-liberal subject is the autonomous liberal subject made in the image of themiddle class’ (2003, p. 239). Regimes of self-regulation are central to middle-classreproduction, and middle-class children learn the imperative of self-regulating prac-tices early on in their schooling:

For many middle-class parents, the imperative to reproduce their privileged classposition in their children is profound. And it is in the context of their social class

reproduction that middle-class children must prove themselves to be self-regulating, aprocess that begins in the early years and one which is integral to, and inextricable from,the processes through which the required level of educational success is achieved. (Reay,2001, p. 341)

The men then are caught up in the politics of self-regulation in their struggle to berecognised as respectable students of HE. The younger men in particular demonstratea determination to overcome what they see as natural flaws, such as laziness. Therefore,in the Foucauldian sense, they struggle to regulate, control and correct the male char-acteristics that are widely constructed as natural ways of being a man. This is not onlyproblematic because it recuperates essentialist notions of the differences between menand women and the assumption that men are naturally lazy. It also hides the complexproduction of misrecognitions and inequalities, constructing an ideal WP subject, whoregardless of social positioning is able to overcome their inherent flaws to self-determinethemselves in an ongoing reflexive project of improvement, progress and success.Those individuals who ‘fail’ to overcome their flaws are seen as undeserving of HEaccess, and the problem of exclusion is relocated at the individual level rather than look-ing beyond to unequal social relations and cultural misrecognitions. Furthermore, thepolitics of self-regulation operate as a technology of assimilation, reinforcing assump-tions that those seen by educational professionals as ‘excluded’ should learn to be morelike those represented as ‘included’ in a homogeneous, mainstream UK society. This‘core’ British society is constructed as untouched by the personal and social historiesof classed, gendered and racialised inequalities (Stuart, 2000). Furthermore, therespectable neoliberal subject works to hide the deeply emotional processes involved inself-regulating practices, where the terror of failure leads middle-class parents to adopthighly competitive tactics for ensuring the reproduction of their privileged positionthrough educational markets (Reay, 2001, p. 341). Reay argues that such tactics serve:

to deepen already existing social divisions in schooling. They are also so widespread as toconstitute ‘class action’ although this kind of class action is not about transformation, but

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

420 P. J. Burke

about reproduction (Reay 1998). Middle-class children are learning an important lessonabout failure and that it is intolerable, unwanted and belongs somewhere else. That is whycontemporary educational policy is so paradoxical. It is nominally about raising working-class achievement although its practices generate the exact opposite, ensuring that educa-tional failure remains firmly located within the working classes. (Reay, 2001, pp. 341–342)

Disciplinary regimes work in contradictory ways, then, for the working-class andminority ethnic men in this study. As men, they are able to draw upon privilegeddiscourses of masculinity in making and performing their identities and yet, at thesame time, they are also constructed in relation to the deficit discourses of socialexclusion and WP (Archer & Leathwood, 2003; Archer et al., 2003b). For example,Gladiator constructs himself through forms of masculinities that are familiar incontemporary discourses of ‘doing boy’ of ‘being loud and disruptive’. However, indi-vidual boys who are seen as a problem to schools are also called upon to regulatethemselves. This works as a mechanism to hide the politics of mis/recognition(Skeggs, 2004, p. 147). Those boys who are unable to control the perceived excessesof their (working-class) masculinities are seen as lacking skills of self-governance, inneed of tighter levels of regulation and ultimately as unworthy of HE access. Suchlack of control extends to explanations for wider exclusions at school, includingsocialising with peers and fashioning an acceptable version of being a boy in the class-room. For example, Gladiator understands his exclusion from school friendshipgroups in terms of his excessive masculinity and remembers attempting to correct andcontrol this excessiveness by changing himself.

Gladiator: I was annoying.Interviewer: In what way were you annoying?Gladiator: I was loud and compulsive and just crazy, apparently […] my character did

not appeal to people. So I was picked on, and I didn’t have many friends.But then after year ten I thought I’d better change my ways, and then Ibecame popular, so I sort of calmed down a bit.

Interviewer: So you changed yourself?Gladiator: I had to change myself.Interviewer: But how did you do that? It’s not easy.Gladiator: I know. I was just so annoyed at having zero friends, because I was loud

and impulsive, so I just calmed down and tried to be quiet in class, try andbe funny at times, and just make friends like that. To not stand out and justfade away. So it was a change of character.

Gladiator explains that he ‘had to change’ himself by adopting some feminised waysof being; calming down, being quiet, not standing out and fading away. However, theways that individual subjects regulate their gendered identities must be understood inthe context of the social privilege that masculinity continues to have over femininity.So although Gladiator talks about ‘fading away’, which has resonance with femininedispositions, he also explains:

Gladiator: Well, I changed my ways but that was only half the story. I was still loudand still very disruptive in lessons. And just sporty, basically, but loud anddisruptive is the way …

Interviewer: How do you think your teachers would have described you?

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 421

Gladiator: Well, the teachers described me as exceptionally intelligent but verydisruptive. That’s it basically. A clown, basically.

Gladiator draws on feminine characteristics to explain the ways he negotiatedinclusion and success at school, yet constructs a masculine identity, drawing onsymbolic practices such as playing sports, being disruptive while still being seen byothers as intelligent and as being the popular class clown. Gladiator’s accountexposes the complexities of multiple identity positions in relation to the discoursesaround masculinities, which carry privilege, and racialised, working-class identities,constructed as corrupted and corrupting, unruly, excessive and out of control(Skeggs, 2004). Gladiator does not appear in his account to be suffering a crisis ofmasculinity, but rather engages in self-regulating mechanisms to distance himselffrom despised and Other identities. Similar to Paul above, Gladiator alsoconstructs his identity in relation to WP discourses around innate talent, abilityand potential when he explains that his teachers would have described him as‘exceptionally intelligent’. I argue that the men, in the context of the interview,struggle to construct a self that is recognisable as worthy of HE participation.However, this is tied not only to the hegemonic discourses of WP but also ofmasculinity. Similar to the boys in Mac an Ghaill’s study, a ‘defining characteristicof their social identity was the projection of a publicly confident heterosexualmasculinity’ (Mac an Ghaill, 1994, p. 52). The men’s memories suggest that theproject of becoming a man is a fluid process of negotiating multiple cultural sitesof meaning and expectation. For example, Ali describes himself as a pupil atschool:

I [was] fearless, messy, but … I was never a bully but I always used to get myself in trouble.But I couldn’t take anything from anyone. I would say I get myself in trouble, like fightingand little stuff, when we were little kids, about three times a week. So I was a bit … notviolent. Violence is too much for a young person, but, I don’t know, I was a bit tough. Bigheaded, I think. […] Talking about the Middle East, even when you are young, you haveto be what they call a man. Even if you are just ten years old, or something, you have tobehave properly […]. You have to earn your respect. You don’t have to earn it the way I,well, I tried to do. You can earn it in some other ways, but for me this was the easiest. Icouldn’t take anything from anyone. I was not as flexible as I am now.

Ali describes his schoolboy identity in masculine-oriented terms: as ‘fearless’ and‘tough’. Again, bullying emerges as a key theme but in this instance as a form of disi-dentification. Ali articulates his sense of masculinity in relation to not taking anythingfrom anyone, although this, he admits, got him into trouble at school. Interestingly,he makes a distinction between ‘violence’ and ‘fighting’, which he connects with thedifference between being a boy and being a man, because he explains ‘violence is toomuch for a young person’. However, not taking anything from anyone is a key strategyfor Ali in earning respect and being recognised as a man. He implies that this mightbe a form of rigid masculinity, which over time has softened slightly as he has growninto being flexible. He finally avoids delineating a distinct identity as a pupil in hisaccount but hints at a changing sense of self across different cultural sets of expecta-tions of what a man should be. Respectable masculinity in Ali’s account is fashioned

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

422 P. J. Burke

in contradictory ways, both as ‘not taking anything from anybody’ and as ‘behavingproperly’.

Masculinities and widening participation

The quotes from the press at the start of this paper signal a crisis of masculinity on aglobal scale. Policy imperatives to widen participation are interconnected with neo-liberal regulatory technologies. The men construct their educational participation asa project of becoming (better) men, invoking an ideal and respectable masculinity.They construct respectable selves as those who are university educated, engaged inintellectual rather than manual labour, comfortable (but not too wealthy) and finan-cially able to support a family.

A key theme in the men’s talk is a natural tendency towards laziness and disorgan-isation. Laziness is discursively constructed as an essential male characteristic,which poses the most significant threat to their educational achievement past andpresent. Their accounts of laziness function in two ways. First, they recuperatedeterminist discourses that construct boys/men as having a natural propensity tolaziness, reminiscent of the cliché that ‘boys will be boys’. Simultaneously, theyclaim an identity as naturally intelligent despite their laziness. Secondly, they drawon the self-improvement narratives of neo-liberalism; the imperative to overcomenatural flaws through self-disciplining practices. Masculinity is sustained as a privi-leged subject position and yet some forms of femininity are useful to the men inreconstructing their identities as university students. The men draw on feminisedinscriptions (e.g. being quiet and organised) while also citing examples of ‘doingboy’. They are thus able to reconcile, to some extent, the disconnections betweensome forms of masculinity (e.g. being loud and lazy) and being recognised as apotential university student.

This analysis challenges the discourse of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ and suggests thatthe question of men’s participation in HE must be understood within shifting, discur-sive and interconnected identity formations. The crisis of masculinity narrative makesthe mistake of homogenising boys and men, without deconstructing the discursiveproduction of the ideal student-subject. The negotiation of access to HE is entangledin the complex interplay of identity, power and discourse and must take into accountboys’/men’s heterogeneity across age, class, ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, sexu-ality and other auto/biographical differences.

The men appear to have a strong sense of aspiration and self, further contestingnarratives of crisis. Yet, their accounts illuminate the fragility of their projects tobecome respectable men and to be recognised as worthy of HE participation. Whatthe analysis illuminates is that student identities are discursively made and remade,connected to complex social and personal histories, micro-processes and auto/biographical identities. The men are engaged in the messy discursive work of beingrecognised as a student both through and against self-regulating practices andthrough the distancing of Other (despised) identities. This is in the context of WPpolicy that implicates certain student identities as potentially contaminating and

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

Men accessing education 423

damaging HE standards. While the men value the educational opportunities providedby access and foundation programmes and are determined to make use of theresources and support available to them, they struggle to reposition themselves asdeserving students and respectable men.

References

Archer, L. (2003) Race, masculinity and schooling: Muslim boys and education (Maidenhead, OpenUniversity Press).

Archer, L. & Leathwood, C. (2003) Identities, inequalities and HE, in: L. Archer, M. Hutchings &A. Ross (Eds) HE and social class: issues of exclusion and inclusion (London & New York,Routledge Falmer).

Archer, L. & Yamashita, H. (2003) Theorising Inner-city Masculinities: ‘race’, class, gender andeducation, Gender and Education, 15(2), 115–132.

Archer, L., Hutchings, M. & Ross, A. (2003a) HE and social class: issues of exclusion and inclusion(London & New York, Routledge Falmer).

Archer, L., Hutchings, M. & Ross, A. (2003b) Widening participation in HE: implications forpolicy and practice, in: L. Archer, M. Hutchings & A. Ross (Eds) HE and social class: issues ofexclusion and inclusion (London, Routledge Falmer).

Bowl, M. (2003) Non-traditional entrants to HE: ‘they talk about people like me’ (Stoke-on-Trent,Trentham Books).

Burke, P. J. (2002) Accessing education effectively widening participation (Stoke-on-Trent, TrenthamBooks).

Chesshyre, R. (2001) Why another young man took his life, Daily Mail. Available online at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/HEth/mensHEth.html?in_article_id=82721&in_page_id=1800 (accessed 14 August 2005).

Connell, R. (1995) Masculinities (Cambridge, Polity Press).Connell, R. W. (2000) The men and the boys (Cambridge & Oxford, Polity & Blackwell).Delamont, S. (2000) The anomalous beasts: hooligans and the sociology of education, Sociology,

34(1), 95–112.Department for Education and Skills (2004) The future of higher education (London, HMSO).Epstein, D., Elwood, J., Hey, V. & Maw, J. (1998a) Failing boys? Issues in gender and achievement

(Buckingham, Open University Press).Epstein, D., Elwood, J., Hey, V. & Maw, J. (1998b) Schoolboy frictions: feminism and ‘failing’

boys, in: D. Epstein, J. Elwood, V. Hey & J. Maw (Eds) Failing Boys? Issues of Gender andAchievement (Buckingham & Philidelphia, PA, Open University Press).

Fordham, S. (1996) Blacked out: dilemmas of race, identity, and success at Capital High (Chicago, IL,University of Chicago Press).

Francis, B. (1999) Lads, lasses and (New) Labour: 14–16 year-old students’ responses to the ‘laddishbehaviour and boys’ underachievement’ debate, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(3),355–371.

Francis, B. (2005) Gender and lifelong learning (Birkbeck, University of London).Fraser, N. (1997) Justice interruptus: critical reflections on the “postsocialist” condition (London,

Routledge).Gillborn, D. & Youdell, D. (2000) Rationing education: policy, practice, reform and equity (Buckingham,

Open University Press).Gough, B. & Peace, P. (2000) Reconstructing gender at university: men as victims, Gender and

Education, 12(3), 385–398.Hall, S. (1992) Introduction: identity in question, in: S. Hall, D. Held & T. McGrew (Eds) Modernity

and its futures (Cambridge, Polity Press).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013

424 P. J. Burke

Jackson, C. (2002) ‘Laddishness’ as a self-worth protection strategy, Gender and Education, 14(1),37–51.

Jones, K. (1999) In the shadow of the Centre-Left: post-conservative politics and rethinkingeducational change, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 20(2), 235–247.

Lawler, S. (2005) Introduction: class, culture and identity, Sociology, 39(5), 797–806.Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The making of men: masculinities, sexualities and schooling (Buckingham &

Philadelphia, PA, Open University Press).Martino, W. (1999) ‘Cool boys’, ‘party animals’, ‘squids’ and ‘poofters’: interrogating the dynam-

ics and politics of adolescent masculinities in school, British Journal of Sociology of Education,20(2), 239–263.

Miller, J. (1996) School for women (London, Virago).Morley, L. (1999) Organising feminisms: the micropolitics of the academy (London, Macmillan Press).Quinn, J. (2003) Powerful subjects are women really taking over the university? (Stoke-on-Trent,

Trentham Books).Raphael Reed, L. (1999) Troubling boys and disturbing discourses on masculinity and schooling:

a feminist exploration of current debates and interventions concerning boys in school, Genderand Education, 11(1), 93–110.

Reay, D. (2001) Finding or losing yourself?: working-class relationships to education, Journal ofEducation Policy, 16(4), 333–346.

Reay, D. (2002) Shaun’s story: troubling discourses of white working-class masculinities, Genderand Education, 14(3), 221–234.

Reay, D. (2005) Beyond consciousness? The psychic landscape of social class, Sociology, 39(5),911–928.

Sacks, G. (2005, March 20) Boys or girls pick your victim, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Opinion,Part M.

Savage, M. (2000) Class analysis and social transformation (Buckingham, Open University Press).Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of class and gender: becoming respectable (London, Sage).Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, self, culture (London & New York, Routledge).Stuart, M. (2000) Beyond rhetoric:reclaiming a radical agenda for active participation in HE, in: J.

Thompson (Ed.) Stretching the academy: the politics and practice of widening participation in HE(Leicester, NIACE).

Thompson, J. (2000) Introduction, in: J. Thompson (Ed.) Stretching the academy: the politics andpractice of widening participation in HE (Leicester, NIACE).

Walkerdine, V. (2003) Reclassifying upward mobility: femininity and the neo-liberal subject,Gender and Education, 15(3), 237–249.

Weis, L. (2003) Gender, masculinity and the new economy, Australian Educational Researcher,30(3), 111–129.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f H

ong

Kon

g L

ibra

ries

] at

05:

21 2

7 Se

ptem

ber

2013