Being 'nice' or being 'normal': girls resisting discourses of 'coolness'

In this paper we consider discourses of friendship and belonging mobilised by girls who are not part of the dominant ‘cool’ group in one English primary school. We explore how, by investing in alternative and, at times, resistant, discourses of ‘being nice’ and ‘being normal’ these ‘non-cool’ girls were able to avoid some of the struggles for dominance and related bullying and exclusion found by ourselves and other researchers to be a feature of ‘cool girls’ groupings. We argue that there are multiple dynamics in girls’ lives in which being ‘cool’ is only sometimes a dominant concern, and that there are some children for whom explicitly positioning themselves outside of the ‘cool’ group is both resistant and protective, providing a counter-discourse to the dominance of ‘coolness’. In this paper, which is based on observational and interview data in one school in the south of England, we focus on two main groupings of intermediate and lower status girls, as well as on one ‘wannabe’ ‘cool girl’. While belonging to a lower status group can bring disadvantages, for the girls we studied there were also benefits

Beyond binary discourses: making LGBTQI+ identities visible in the curriculum

In this chapter I argue that changes in wider social understandings of gender and sexuality, including the increased acceptance and legal recognition of LGBTQI+ identities and relationships, along with changes in discourses around gender, require major changes across the curriculum. In particular, an increase in the number of children, young people and adults identifying in different ways as transgender require us to make significant changes in the curriculum to include LGBTQI+ parented families, and LGBTQI+ children and young people, fully into school communities. After an overview of historical debates about gender and education in England and Wales, I examine changes in assumptions about gender and schooling and discuss schools’ relationships to the heterosexuality. Through an analysis of school policies in two English Local Authority areas, I examine how school policies about what should be taught fail to represent the greater diversity about gender and sexual orientation in contemporary society, and conclude that there must be considerable change in both the official and hidden curriculum in order to rectify this

Where are the feminine boys? Interrogating the positions of feminised masculinities in research on gender and childhood

In this paper I examine the postion of feminine boys in the literature on gender and childhood. I argue that there has been little systematic research carried out on feminine boys, and that this is the case for several reasons. I start with discussing how researchers tend to focus on dominant narratives, with the result that alternative positions are either ignored or treated as straightforwardly subordinate. Following that, I consider some of the problems associated with how we define femininity in boys, and difficulties related to naming a boy as feminine. I then call into question the assumption that feminine boys are always subordinate in schools and related settings, and discuss spaces of resistance. Finally, I suggest ways in which research could move forward in this area

Effects of Covid-19 on families with children under five in Nottingham. Report prepared for Small Steps, Big Changes

This report is of a study of the experiences of families with children under five in Nottingham during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Our study: 29 interviews with parents from 27 families: 27 women and 2 men, living in Nottingham – all but two in Nottingham city. All families had at least one child under five. Priority given to interviewing people in four SSBC wards. Questions about how lockdown was for them and how they coped, and hopes for the future. Also asked parents how they thought their child felt about lockdown. Good experiences: More time together and bonding as a family – especially important for fathers. Benefits for child’s routine due to being at home during lockdown. Benefits for younger children spending time with older siblings. Some health professionals went out of their way to help families. Move to telephone GP appointments often made attendance easier. Some people got to know neighbours better. Problems experienced: Worry about themselves or their families catching Covid-19 Worry about finances. Difficulties obtaining baby milk or nappies due to panic buying. Lack of access to health care staff. Lack of access to disability assessment, support, physiotherapy. Isolation for both parents and children when groups cancelled. Parents had no time to themselves. Parents and children missed contact with extended family - this also meant some children lost access to heritage languages. Working parents found it difficult to work from home and care for their children; some employers unsympathetic. Children lost confidence with adults outside immediate family. Children missed outside play and access to parks and play areas

Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee: inquiry into children, young people and the built environment

This is a submission to a parliamentary inquiry on children, young people and the built environment, focused on findings from the Girl Skateboarder Project

Evaluation of Small Steps Big Changes: report on attempt to apply cost-benefit analysis

This paper sets out our findings from an attempt to apply cost benefit analysis (CBA) to Small Steps Big Changes. CBA is a method that is used by economists to determine the effect that a project has on social welfare. It is based on assigning monetary values to relevant economic costs and benefits associated with a project and if the benefits outweigh the costs the project is deemed worthwhile. The application of such an approach to Small Steps Big Changes might appear to be a futile exercise. How do we possibly assign a monetary value to interventions that target pre-school children? This is clearly a difficult exercise but is nevertheless one that has been tackled elsewhere, most notably in the United States of America. Before presenting the findings from an attempt to apply CBA to Small Steps Big Changes as part of the wider evaluation project, we briefly set out the principles of CBA and review the literature, both academic and non-academic, where CBA has been applied to pre-school interventions. A number of influential studies in the academic economics literature are based on the HighScope Perry Pre-School project in Michigan and the Carolina Abecedarian project in the USA. In the UK there are a small number of studies on publicly funded pre-school education initiatives. This literature review provides the basis for the approach that we intended to apply in the evaluation of Small Steps Big Changes. In particular the literature review highlights the nature of the benefits that we might expect to be generated and how it would be possible to generate monetary values for these, along with the findings from previous CBA studies. We had then intended to present our findings for Small Steps Big Changes including, where possible, a breakdown of the results for constituent projects of Small Steps Big Changes. However as the evaluation proceeded it became apparent that this was not going to be possible. Instead we report on the challenges that were encountered so that these can be addressed in any future evaluation of this type of activity

Masculine femininities/feminine masculinities: power, identities and gender

This paper is basically about terminology. In it I discuss the terms 'masculinity' and 'femininity' and how they relate to being male and being female. My theme arises from an increasing difficulty that I am finding in understanding how individual identities relate to dominant constructions of masculinity and femininity. Christine Skelton and Becky Francis argue that we should not be afraid to name certain behaviours as masculine even when they are performed by girls. After a discussion of the problems of defining both 'masculinity' and 'femininity', and a consideration of the power relations between these terms, I go on to consider the concept of 'female masculinity' (Halberstam). I argue that this formulation is problematic, due to its dependence on a main term whose definition is unclear. Finally, I argue that we need to distinguish 'masculinity' and 'femininity' from 'masculinities' and 'femininities'

Communities of practice of transition: an analytical framework for studying change-focused groups

In this paper we consider a previously unidentified form of community of practice: the community of practice of transition. Our exemplar data comes from two separate studies, one of a group for trans young people and one of an online divorce support community. Such communities differ from other communities of practice because the transition process itself is the focus and the shared practice of the community. We argue that communities of practice of transition differ from 'classic' communities of practice in four main ways. First, and most salient, there are differences in relation to time and its importance. Second, and following from this, there are differences in relation to the focus of trajectories into and through the group, which affect who is able to become a central member. Third, the role and characteristics of central members of the community are different from those found in a traditionally conceived community of practice: moving out of a transitional state (and therefore, out of the community) is key to old-timer status. Finally, reified events are highly salient in communities of practice of transition, and more important than reified objects. We argue that the concept of a community of practice of transition challenges and expands many of the assumptions underpinning the community of practice as a framework for analysing the dynamics and operation of groups and how identities are forged in and through them. Most significantly, we argue that time needs to be taken more seriously in relation to communities of practice