Bodies in and out of place: Schooling and the production of gender identities through embodied experience

Abstract

This chapter explores femininity and masculinity as embodied experiences involving identity work and change for young women and men as they make the transition into adulthood. In Western neoliberal contexts, the bodies of girls and young women are commonly encoded as a “problem.” Policy documents and government initiatives in the UK, USA, and Australia over the last decade have focused on twin themes: the premature sexualization of girls and the reduction of teenage pregnancy. For young men, sexuality appears more muted at the level of policy; however, school-based policies on bullying and sexual harassment, for example, may be underscored by concerns with the dominant and sometimes violent character of male peer group cultures. A broader societal concern is articulated in terms of “crisis,” as young men lose their place in the labor market and the domestic sphere. Following up these themes in an analysis of empirical examples drawn from school-based research, the chapter considers the embodiment of young women and men as contextually specific gender performances. Developing insights based on the perspective of young women and men themselves, a central feature of the chapter explores the knowingness of youthful subjects as they prepare for the next stage in the life course. Within the context of shifting gender relations and late modern social change, the performance of femininity and masculinity can be seen as a living-in-the-skin expression of sex-gender identity and a developmental marker enacted for the self and others. Focusing on corporeality as a signifier of difference as expressed by young women and men themselves can be seen as a “conversation” with discourses that position girls as sexually innocent and boys as “in crisis.” For both groups, the body incites celebratory performance, embracing bodily change and particularly celebrating the presence of the body in an institutional context where the significance of corporeality is commonly under-acknowledged and underplayed.