Boys' Anti-School Culture? Narratives and School Practices

Abstract

Boys' underachievement and oppositional behavior in school has for a long time been the target of various public debates. Drawing on ethnographic data from fieldwork in two Swedish secondary schools, this article explores how the influential theory of boys' anti-school culture can be interpreted as a master narrative that is reproduced, but also contradicted and subverted, by students and teachers in social interaction within local school contexts. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.