Mental health and gender discourses in school: “Emotional” girls and boys “at risk”

Abstract

This paper highlights an emergent form of gender inequality within schools, set against the backdrop of a perceived mental health “crisis” amongst young people in popular and media narratives. We present interview data collected in a qualitative study with students and staff in secondary schools in England. Through a Foucauldian analytic lens, we interrogate the discourses participants mobilised when discussing girls’ and boys’ experiences of mental ill/health. We demonstrate how girls are paradoxically celebrated for their emotional openness and maturity, yet simultaneously positioned as unfairly advantaged and likely to receive “more” mental health support. In contrast, boys are understood as likely to mask their emotional distress through silence or disruptive behaviours, with fears that their needs might be missed and that boys are an “at risk” group. We also illustrate how girls’ manifestation of emotional distress (e.g. crying, self-harm) becomes feminised and diminished. We ultimately call for increased awareness of gendered discourses surrounding mental health in education and resultant inequalities.