Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 117—133, 1997

Masculinity, Violence and Schooling: challenging ‘poisonous
pedagogies'

JANE KENWAY & LINDSAY FITZCLARENCE, Deakin University, Australia

This paper has three major purposes. The first is to point to the connections between
male to male, male to female and adult male to child physical and ‘sexual’ violence and such matters
as masculinity, marginality, sexuality, intimacy and age. The understandings that arise from this
discussion will be used to offer an interpretation of the connections between schooling and violence. In this
context Alice Miller’s ideas about ‘poisonous pedagogies’ will be applied to schooling. The second purpose
of the paper is to identify the major orientations of mainstream, sociocultural and feminist anti-violence
pedagogies and to offer an implicit critique of them, drawing from the ideas developed in the first section
of the paper andfrom research about responses to gender reforms in schools. The third purpose of the paper
is to identify the contours of an alternative anti-violence pedagogy. This will both draw from the above
and from narrative therapy.
ABSTRACT

Introduction

Violence is one of the major social problems of our times and so should be one of the
major issues in current debates about education. As people have become more aware of
the extent and consequences of domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, sexual
harassment, homophobia and racial vilification, our understanding of violence has
become more advanced and the definition of violence has widened. It is increasingly
understood that violence occurs along a continuum and involves physical, sexual, verbal
and emotional abuses of power at individual, group and social structural levels. Kelly
(1987) argues that violence involves ‘a continuous series of elements or events that pass
into one another and cannot be readily distinguished’ but that, nonetheless, these
different events ‘have a basic common character’ (1987, p. 48). Our particular focus in
this paper is on physical violence (sexual and other assault and homicide). However, the
backdrop to our understanding is the Kelly continuum. In this context of understanding
Correspondence: J. Kenway, Deakin Centre for Education and Change, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria,
Australia 3217.
0954-0253/97/010117-17 37.00 © 1997 Journals Oxford Ltd

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many social institutions and cultural forms have become implicated in discussions about
both the causes of violence and its prevention. One such institution is the school.
There are several bodies of research literature which support the following con­
tentions: that violence is widespread in schools, that most often such violence is
perpetrated by males and can thus be understood as a violent expression of certain types
of masculinity, that schools arc implicated in the making of masculinities and that
consequently they can be involved in the unmaking of the types of masculinity which are
implicated in violence. It is increasingly accepted that schools have an important role to
play in the prevention of violence. However, the connections between the matters noted
and the exact role of the school with regard to the prevention of violence and how it
might best bc carried out arc not at all clear. These are the difficult issues which we will
begin to address.
Violence and Masculinity, Marginality, Sexuality, Intimacy and Age

Let us continue with a little evidence to support some of the assertions we have made
thus far, drawing from the situation in Australia. The Report of the National Committee
on Violence (Australian Institute of Criminology, 1990, p. 3) reached the following
general conclusions.
Violent offenders in Australia are overwhelmingly male, primarily between the
ages of 18 and 30 and predominantly from blue collar backgrounds.

Victims of violence most commonly tend to fall into two broad categories: men
who become engaged in altercations with other men; and women and children
who suffer at the hands of men with whom they have been living.

Men, especially those who arc young, single and unemployed, are at far greater
risk of becoming victims of all forms of violence than are women, except for
the categories of sexual assault and domestic violence.
The majority of victims of violence, like perpetrators, come from relatively
disadvantaged backgrounds. Homicide risk, in particular, varies inversely with
occupational status.

Aboriginal Australians face a much greater risk of becoming the victims of
violence than do members of the general Australian population, possibly up to
ten times greater in the case of homicide.
A considerable number of violent crimes never come to police attention;
foremost in this ‘dark figure’ are the majority of sexual assaults and incidents
of domestic violence. (Australian Institute of Criminology, 1990, p. 6)
Masculinity, marginality, sexuality, familiarity or intimacy and age are central to these generalisa­
tions and suggest that a holistic understanding of violence is crucial if we are to develop
adequate approaches to anti violence education in schools (Fitzdarence, 1995a). This
therefore implies that an analysis of causes and suggestions for solutions must factor in
gender and sexuality and the other asymmetrical relationships of power involved in race
and social class dynamics and those between adults and children/adolescents.
What do analyses with such foci tell us? They suggest firstly that given that such stark,
broad patterns of violence exist, violence cannot simply be understood as related to the
deviance or deficiency of the personality of the perpetrator or victim or to the
‘dysfunctions’ of the particular family, culture or subculture involved—although these

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may well bc relevant. Secondly, such analyses tell us that violence cannot be understood
as an occasional social aberration. Thirdly, they tell us that a broader sociocultural and
a more refined psychoanalytic analysis is required; one which attends to dominant and
subordinate cultures and to the ways in which these are represented in the psyche. We
will begin our attempt at such an analysis by focusing on masculinity. Given that males
are the main perpetrators of violence, this is not an arbitrary decision.
Masculinity

It is now fairly well understood that the social, cultural and psychic construction of
masculinity is related to violence and that some kinds of masculinity are more directly
associated with violent behaviour than arc others. It is less well understood that particular
types of masculinity are related to particular types of violence. Which masculinity is most
associated with such physical violence as sexual and other assault and homicide and what
are its key features? Answers to this question must be placed in the context of our current
understandings of the construction of masculinity itself and its relationship to the politics
of gender between males and females and between males alone.
The most convincing discussions of the construction of masculinities, and it is difficult
to go past Connell'(1995) here, make the following points. They argue firstly that
masculine identities are not static but historically and spatially situated and evolving.
They arise through an individual’s interaction with both the dynamisms and contradic­
tions within and between immediate situations and broader social structures—gender
regimes and gender orders if you like. It is this understanding which allows Connell to
talk about masculinity as a life project involving the making and remaking of identity and
meaning. It also allows us to understand the social and psychic complexity and fragility
of masculinity. An appreciation of such complexity and fragility is essential to an
understanding of male violence. It points to the vulnerable underbelly of all masculinities,
to the driving force of such emotions as confusion, uncertainty, fear, impotence, shame
and rage and to their expression in what Nayak & Kchily (no date) call masculine
performances. These performances displace such emotions at the same time as they allow
the performer to claim power and potency (Fitzclarencc, 1992).
A second point arising from our best knowledge to date is that although there are
many masculinities, these can be clustered on the basis of general social, cultural and
institutional patterns of power and meaning and are built in relationship to each other.
Connell (1995, ch. 3) calls these hegemonic, subordinate, complicitous and marginal. The concept
‘hegemonic masculinity’ is now widely used in discussions of masculinity and refers to
those dominant and dominating forms of masculinity which claim the highest status and
exercise the greatest influence and authority. It structures dominance and subordinate
relations across and between the sexes and legitimates the broad structure of power
known as patriarchy. Hegemonic masculinity makes its claims and asserts its authority
through many cultural and institutional practices—particularly the global image media
and the state, and although it does not necessarily involve physical violence it is often
underwritten by the threat of such violence. Subordinate masculinity stands in direct
opposition to hegemonic masculinity and is both repressed and oppressed by it. Indeed,
as Connell (1995, p. 79) says, it is ‘expelled from the circle’ of masculine legitimacy. Gay
masculinities feature in this category. Also represented are any forms which draw most
elements of their core identity from beyond the core of the hegemonic. Any major
attachment to ‘the feminine’ is likely to propel its owner into this category and to subject
him to various forms of violence. Hegemonic masculinity is the standard-bearer of what

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it means to bc a ‘real’ man or boy and many males draw inspiration from its cultural
library of resources. Nonetheless, few men can live up to its rigorous standards. Many
may try and many may not, but either way, according to Connell, they benefit from the
‘patriarchal dividend', the advantage men in general gain from the overall subordination of
women...without the tensions or risks of being the front line troops of patriarchy’ (1995,
p. 79). In this sense, he says, in the politics of gender, they are complicitous with
hegemonic forms of masculinity even if they fail to live up to and do not draw moral
inspiration from its imperatives.
Connell (1995, p. 80) says that the three masculinity dynamics mentioned so far are
‘internal to the gender order. The interplay of gender with other structures such as class
and race creates further relationships between masculinities’. In order to explain the
dynamics going on here he argues that there are masculinities associated with the
dominant and subordinate or marginal races and classes. He further notes that these
marginalised masculinities, which are associated with subordinate social groupings, may
draw both inspiration and legitimacy from hegemonic forms but only wield structural
power to the extent that they are authorised by the dominant class/racc (e.g. Magic
Johnson in the USA). Thus, while marginal masculinities may not bc marginal within
their own patch, they are unlikely to exert power beyond it without some sort of
sponsorship by and only within the tolerance limits of the dominant. In summary, what
we see here is the ebb and flow of masculinities in concert and contest.
It is commonly accepted that masculinities cannot bc fully understood without
attending to their relationship to femininities within the broader scope of patriarchy. It
is therefore important to identify the sorts of femininities which unwittingly underwrite
hegemonic masculinity. The literature suggests that this particular version of femininity
involves compliance and service, subservience and self-sacrifice and constant accommo­
dating to the needs and desires of males. This indicates that anti violence education is
not a boys’ only matter.
This emphasis on the fragile and fluid nature of masculinities in the context of
dynamic power politics between males and females and between males points to the
uncertainty of settlements about what constitutes masculinity in a given person, time and
place and between and within groups. It also suggests that some masculinities may bc
more ‘at risk’ than others. Such settlements are challenged both intentionally and
unintentionally by an array of life forces. The social movements associated with
feminism, gay and lesbian movements and anti racism arc amongst such forces, but so
too are other and perhaps bigger historical sweeps associated with such major economic
and cultural shifts as post-modernity. In turn this means that many masculinities arc
constantly on the offensive and the defensive and in need of regular maintenance,
renewal, repair and adjustment (Kenway, 1995). Nonetheless, when insecure, masculinity
is likely to ‘lash back’, to reinvent itself and to try to shore up either its old or new
foundations.
It is now possible to make some specific points about masculinity and violence. Some
potential flashpoints should already bc evident. If we consider the ongoing project of
sustaining male power and masculine identity, and the individual and group perfor­
mances, repressions, oppressions and contests that this may ‘require’, then we can see
why violence is mobilised. What also becomes evident is the general interest that
compliant masculinity has in the violence which helps to sustain male/femalc power
relations. An understanding of the why is crucial to an understanding of the role of
schools in both producing and challenging violence. Let us now consider the character­
istics most associated with physical violence.

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Predictably and in very general terms it is the characteristics most associated with
hegemonic masculinity which are most likely to be articulated with violence, but not in
the obvious way that simplistic discussions of ‘macho values’ might suggest. At this stage
of Western history, hegemonic masculinity mobilises around physical strength, adventur­
ousness, emotional neutrality, certainty, control, assertiveness, self-reliance, individuality,
competitiveness, instrumental skills, public knowledge, discipline, reason, objectivity and
rationality. It distances itself from physical weakness, expressive skills, private knowledge,
creativity, emotion, dependency, subjectivity, irrationality, co-operation and empathetic,
compassionate, nurturant and certain affiliative behaviours. In other words it distances
itself from the feminine and considers the feminine less worthy. Violent males draw
selectively from this repertoire, exaggerate, distort and glorify these values, attributes and
behaviours and blend them into potent combinations. For example, rather than distance
themselves from the feminine they might avoid and even fear it; rather than look down
upon the feminine they might hold it in contempt and despise it; rather than consider
women and children their inferior, they may regard them as less than human and more
as objects and possessions to bc used and discarded at will. To take some more quick
examples, assertiveness may be exaggerated to become aggression, physical strength to
toughness associated with physically beating others, bravery to bravado and cruelty,
adventurousness to extreme risk-taking, self-discipline to disciplining others as well,
self-reliance to isolation—preferably from above, emotional neutrality to emotional
repression on the one hand and to extremes of rage and shame on the other,
competitiveness to hostility, rationality to the rationalisation of violence, sexual potency
to control over and contempt for women’s bodies and so on.
Violent cultures, bc they in the family, the school, the locker room, the pub, the
workplace or the street, draw from, distort and exaggerate discourses from the discursive
field of hegemonic masculinity. Nonetheless, their emotional underbelly remains charac­
terised by identity uncertainty, anxiety and fear; with unfortunate consequences. The
consequences involve what Miller (1987a) labels a complicated psycho dynamic mechan­
ism of splitting off from uncomfortable feelings and of projecting such feelings on to an
externalised object or other person. Such splitting and displacement are key features of
violence. Miller (1987b, 88~89) uses the notion of the vicious circle of contempt to explain
how emotions that cause discomfort are projected on to others. She describes the process
thus:
Contempt for those who are smaller and weaker thus is the best defence against
a breakthrough of one’s own feelings of helplessness: it is an expression of this
split-off weakness.

Let us now consider some more specific examples of violence—male to male, male to
female and adult male to child.
Male/Male Violence

The literature on boys and schooling is replete with examples of school boy tribalism and
tribal rivalry. It shows that groups develop a distinctive style either in line with or against
the criteria mentioned above. Boy groups offer their members peer friendship, pleasure
and pride, identity development, excitement and status resources and goals. However,
there is often a price to pay for both the individual and the group.
In and out of school life for many adolescent boys is characterised by constant
attempts to sort out identity issues and dominance relations (Weisfeld, 1994, p. 56).

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Dominance performances and contests occur at the individual and the group level, may
revolve around issues of toughness, athletic ability, strength, popularity with girls, sexual
achievements, risk-taking, fearlessness and fighting prowess. These will often include
harassing girls, teachers and other boys, particularly those identified as ‘gay’. Sexual
harassment and homophobic violence can bc seen to arise from the gender politics,
hetero/sexist politics (Epstein, in press) and the fear of the feminine noted above.
Such performances are directed towards reputation, towards being seen as strong,
cool and in control and towards saving face, avoiding humiliation. Often dominance
displays will involve a calculated rejection of school achievement and an anti-authority
stance.
Male dominance/subordination relations are often worked out through the use of
legitimate (sport) and illegitimate (brawling, bashing) physical violence. Again, such
violence is premised on beliefs about the importance of aggressive and violent acts for
gaining and maintaining status, reputation and resources in the male group, to sustain
a sense of masculine identity and as a form of ‘self protection. Studies of violent older
boys in the school and in out of school gangs show that much time is spent seeking
respect and striving for positional power which is recognised by the group. However,
power here is unstable and those who achieve positional power must work hard to sustain
it. As a consequence, such groups often are characterised by intense male to male
competition for dominance. Taking risks and fighting over drugs, territory, honour, girls,
perceived insults, and ethnic tension can readily transform into assaults and homicides
when access to alcohol, drugs and weapons is readily available and involved (Goldstein,
1994).
The boys and men from racial and class minorities who subscribe to the beliefs about
violence outlined above and who use various forms of violence to demonstrate their
power and potency may find that it pays off in group leadership, popularity, pride,
friendship and excitement and other resources which may not bc available to them in
other settings outside, say, the group or gang. Indeed, there is an argument which
suggests that it is the groups of boys who are most marginalised by society and by the
school who are most prone to violence and who subscribe to such values and who,
paradoxically, are victims of such values. They are Connell’s ‘shock troops’; those who
do the dirty work of patriarchy.
The argument goes that for boys who arc in poverty, from racial and ethnic minority
cultures, who arc educationally disadvantaged, homeless, unemployed, risky and violent
behaviour provides almost the only way of obtaining status and cultural resources. In
other words, physical violence may well be most pronounced among those who have
more to gain and little to lose (in the short term at least), most likely to occur amongst
those outside the mainstream of education, employment and stable relationships. Such
behaviour provides ‘an opportunity to exercise personal power under conditions of
minimal structural power...a mode of influence of last resort’ (Archer, 1994, p. 317).
What we see in these examples is the consequences for individuals of belonging to groups
with less structural power and status and the ways in which a lack of power and status
at the structural level can result in the exercise of violence at the individual and group
level. What we also sec arc the consequences of the failure of society and its institutions
to integrate all its members. This is not to suggest that males from other social groupings
are non-violent, rather it is to offer an explanation for the relatively high levels of
violence among disadvantaged groups. However, the role of the privileged should not be
overlooked in this context, as Giroux (1996, p. 66) points out with regard to the US
experience:

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Beneath the growing culture of violence, both real and simulated, there lies a
deep-seated racism that has produced what I want to call a white moral panic.
The elements of this panic are rooted, in part, in a growing fear among the
white middle class over declining quality of social, political, and economic life
that has resulted from an increase in poverty, drugs, hate, guns, unemploy­
ment, social disenfranchisement, and hopelessness.
It is jw/zzg men who are most likely to be violent and to be victims of violence. What is
it, in particular, about young men that makes them prone to violence? There are many
theories put forward and those of particular pertinence relate to the nature of ado­
lescence itself. Adolescence is a time of striving for independence, searching for and
experimenting with identity, challenging authority, and focusing away from the family to
peer and sexual relationships. Exaggerated hegemonic values are likely both to appeal to
adolescent boys and to spill over into violence for many possible reasons. These include
the following. Firstly, as a function of their move from childhood to adulthood and their
resultant push against authority and search for autonomy adolescent boys may bc drawn
to risk-taking. Secondly, the exercise of power is most likely to erupt into overt violence
when status and identity are uncertain. Thirdly, inter-male competition is most
pronounced when an interest in sexual activity is highest; at later adolescence it may
become particularly pronounced due to the intensification of sexual activity and sexual
competition.
Male/female Violence

Violence by males against females most commonly takes the form of rape and sexual
assault, domestic violence and verbal and physical harassment. Most violence against
women and girls occurs within relationships of one sort or another. Intimate relations
and settings are more likely to result in violence than are stranger relations and public
spaces, although clearly violence erupts there too. Even so there is overwhelming
evidence to show that verbal and physical harassment, teasing and taunting relating to
sexuality or gender against girls and women is rife in schools. Most boys either engage
in this or comply with it.
The literature indicates that the males who are most likely to resort to serious physical
violence against females subscribe to traditional and patriarchal views of male power and
supremacy, traditional gender roles and to the view that violence is an acceptable way
of resolving conflict. They believe that men arc superior to women and have natural
rights over them and natural dues from them. These include the following: the male’s
right to regard the woman as property and legitimately to control her through violence:
the belief that it is legitimate to use physical violence when the rights and dues are not
fulfilled and to resolve interpersonal conflict through the use of violence. When the
male’s status or power is threatened in some way, violence is regarded as an appropriate
way of restoring the right and proper order—of keeping women in a subservient position.
In this view the male’s sense of his masculine identity is caught up in the exercise of
power over women through violence.
Sex and sexuality7 are a key feature of this scenario. Misogyny easily translates into
sexual violence. Denigrating women and girls legitimates such violence and allows violent
males selectively to interpret their own behaviour around, for example, ‘only joking'
motifs and to ignore the feelings of others. Violent males’ reputations may be based on
obtaining sexual access to women but their self-worth is often caught up in the sexual

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dominance and exploitation of women. Callous sexual attitudes are a common feature
of the conversation of young males in schools, as are conceptions of sexual violence as
manly—this is how ‘real men’ treat women (Wood, 1984). Belonging to a sexually
exploitative peer group is more than likely to predispose a young man towards violence
against girls and women. There are many generally accepted social beliefs which develop
a cultural tolerance of rape and other sorts of violence against women and girls. These
are called rape myths and prepare the male for his rape or harassment activities through
a cultural library of excuses to forgive his misdemeanours.
There is a literature which argues that males and females have different orientations
to aggression and violence. This suggests that to males, violence is instrumental to
obtaining tangible or abstract benefits. As Anne Campbell (1993) p. 11) says:
men see aggression as a means of exerting control over other people when they
fell the need to reclaim power and self esteem. Women see aggression as a
temporary loss of control caused by overwhelming pressure and resulting in
guilt.

To women violence represents an emotion and not coping rather than an exercise of
power. This literature also suggests that men and women have different orientations to
intimacy. It suggests that men who subscribe to traditional versions of masculinity find
intimacy terrifying as it represents the feminine values about which they are so fearful.
It ‘makes’ them feel vulnerable and puts their sense of control at risk. For women,
intimacy is more the natural order of things and they find it difficult to understand and
deal with such men’s distancing behaviour with regard to it. When one brings these
understandings to the issues of violence between males and females in relationships we
see a fundamental clash of styles and understandings with explosive potential. Further,
as Jenkins (1990, p. 37) argues:

males have an exaggerated sense of entitlement and status in relation to
females and children, an avoidance of social and emotional responsibility and
a reliance on others (especially females) to take social and emotional responsi­
bilities.
Adult Male/ Child Violence

Childhood sexual abuse/assault is more difficult to explain than the other forms of
violence discussed above. Nonetheless it is not too difficult to extrapolate from those
values associated with violence against females—particularly those associated with
entitlement and emotional irresponsibility. Most cases involve adult males aged between
35 and 40 years of age; however, as Andrews (1994) reports, they have no agreed profile.
Even so, many have cognitive distortions about the acceptability of their behaviour,
which often has traumatic consequences for survivors leading to severe psychological
problems and next generation offences. This inter-generational process is well explored
and explained by Alice Miller, formerly a practising psychoanalyst for over 20 years and
currently a strong critic of both psychoanalytic theories and methods.
Miller’s (1987a, 1987b, 1990) basic thesis is that from generation to generation the
practices of child-rearing privilege the needs of adults over those of children. Based on
her many years of counselling she argues that this often involves various forms of
abuse—some obvious, some not so. Either way, the processes involved are aimed at
breaking the will of the child in order that he or she can be controlled. Miller argues that
when children are abused in this way they are ‘trained’ to be abusive and that as a result

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they learn, subconsciously, how to ‘train’ others in turn. Miller calls this process poisonous
pedagogy. She observes that the effects of this abuse are destined to be repeated by victims
at a later time in their lives unless they have had an opportunity to acknowledge what
has happened and to work through the associated feelings. The absence of such a
conscious acknowledgement of the powerful feelings associated with abuse leads, she says,
to the ongoing return of repressed anxieties and frustrations and this can sometimes lead
to violent and destructive behaviours. Such behaviour is often rationalised in the
perpetrator’s mind and thus made ‘legitimate’. This in turn leads to further repressions,
and to the cyclical repetition of the behaviour. In order for a person to break out of the
cycle and avoid violent and abusive behaviour, he/she has to be able both to acknowl­
edge the situation and to understand and integrate anger/fear/frustration as part of
him/herself.
‘Schooling the Violent Imagination’ [1]

What does all of this imply about school education? Here are the hard truths as we see
them based on our preceding analysis. If schools implicitly subscribe to and endorse
hegemonic versions of masculinity, particularly in their more exaggerated forms, then
they arc complicit in the production of violence. If they fear ‘the feminine’ and avoid and
discourage empathetic, compassionate, nurturant and affiliative behaviours and
emotional responsibility and instead favour heavy-handed discipline and control then
they are complicit. If they seek to operate only at the level of rationality and if they
rationalise violence then they are complicit. If they are structured in such a way as to
endorse the culture of male entitlement and indicate that the needs of males are more
important than those of females then they are complicit. If they are repressive in their
adult/child relations and do not offer adolescent students in particular opportunities to
develop wise judgements and to exercise their autonomy in responsible ways then they
are complicit. If they operate in such a way as to marginalise and stigmatise certain
groups of students then they are complicit. The following remark speaks volumes in this
regard:
It is easier for politicians, educators and service providers to manage racism
when it is defined in terms of visible, face-to-face incidents. What this implies
is that the only perpetrator of racism is the racist aggressor and it exempts
Australian systems, structures and institutions. It leaves invisible racism and
racist structures in place and untouched. Common sense, day-to-day practises
are never questioned, therefore we continue to offer services to all Australians
without any thought of how, through these structures, we are reproducing
inequality. (Indigenous Australians, 1995, p. 8)
It is our view that interventions which do not attend to all these matters will be limited
in their effects and conversely that whatever schools do to address the issue of violence
must attend to them (Fitzclarence et al. 1995). However, how schools might best do this
is not at all clear. We do not know as much as we need to know about schooling and
violence, let alone about making gender and related matters central components of
educational challenges to it. That aside, the main difficulty in all of this is firstly that
gender, age and marginality are central structuring features of school cultures and education
systems, and secondly that emotional neutrality and hyper-rationality are core structuring
values. Hence, to attend to the matters mentioned is to go right to the heart of school
culture (Fitzclarence, 1995b).

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Attending to school culture is not a popular approach in anti-violence programmes in
schools. Most approaches draw their insights from psychology. This has meant that they
have concentrated on the personal and interpersonal and the small scale. The dominant
tendency here has been to individualise and pathologise and indeed infantilise the
violence which occurs within schools and/or to blame the peer group, family and/or the
media for violence both in schools and beyond. Such approaches have not encouraged
schools to see themselves as amongst the many institutions which are complicit in the
production of violent behaviour. More recently however, the focus has shifted, at least
in some quarters.
This shift has resulted from insights developed in educational sociology and feminism.
According to this view, the school is not the innocent victim of isolated incidents of
violence, neither is it the safe haven for victims of outside violence; violence is embedded
in its culture and power relationships. In many obvious and subtle ways schools model,
permit and shape violent attitudes and behaviours, they encourage students to accept
that certain levels and orders of violence are normal and natural. This means that
violence often goes unrecognised and unaddressed. This set of perspectives has encour­
aged ‘whole school’ approaches to addressing violence at the level of administration and
curriculum (see Salisbury & Jackson, 1996).
This general approach provides a necessary corrective to those which focus on the
psychology of the individual or group. Clearly, an adequate understanding of patterns of
violence in schools requires a holistic perspective. However, it is not clear to us that even
the sociocultural or the psychological perspectives together offer such a perspective. As we
have implied throughout; it is not a matter of putting the big picture alongside the small,
it is a matter of seeing how each is represented in the other. It is also our view that the
sociocultural perspective docs not attend sufficiently to what we have identified above as
the central components of violence. Indeed, we would go so far as to say that some of
the approaches contribute to the very problems that they seek to eradicate. How could
this possibly bc? Some examples from the research into gender reform and education in
schools by one of us will serve to illustrate the point. Further details of the research are
provided in Kenway et al., (1997) so suffice it to say that case, cameo and survey data
were gathered in many schools which were selected because they were undertaking some
sort of gender reform. The schools ranged over various types and locations and included
students of different social and cultural catchments. This choice of example is apt as
gender reform should be a central component of anti violence programmes.
We categorised strategies for gender reform in our research schools into two broad
camps, one which demonstrated elements of authoritarianism and the other, elements of
therapy. In the first instance the tendency was to ignore altogether the world of feelings
and to resort to highly rationalistic and even authoritarian policies and pedagogies.
Hyper-rationalistic solutions were offered to deeply emotive issues. In many cases these
subverted their intentions and alienated many students and staff. Alternatively, when
they did attend to such matters, it was often the case that the approach was more
therapeutic than educational. Ensuring that students and colleagues enjoyed themselves
and/or felt good about their gender became more important than helping them to
become critical, informed and skilled advocates for a better world. Usually for the people
on the receiving end, either too much or too little was demanded and at stake. In both
cases gender reform in our schools was a heady emotional cocktail. The feelings which
were mobilised included discomfort, uncertainty, inadequacy, defensiveness, anxiety,
envy, insecurity, stress, anger, resentment, rejection, contempt, fear, grief, loss, pain,
blame, shame, betrayal and abandonment. They also included feelings of pleasure,

Masculinity, Violence and Schooling

12 7

courage, yearning, security, strength, comfort, amusement, delight, connectedness, ex­
citement, gratification and even gusto, but, to be honest, less often. As a result the effect;
of gender reform were not easy to predict (Kenway el al. 1996). Nonetheless, on the basis
of this research it is possible to make some points which pertain to anti-violcncc
education.
This research suggests that approaches which preach rather than teach and which arc
destructive rather than deconstructive and reconstructive do not work. Adolescents de
not like to bc told and they particularly do not like to have the things they do and value
criticised by older generations. Peer relations are generally considered far more import­
ant than teacher-student relations. The implication here is that a socially critical/deconstructive negotiated curriculum is preferable; one which guides and encourages student;
both to discover their own truths about gender, marginality and age and violence anc
to develop their own responsible preventative practices. This should be a curriculurr
which is oriented towards action. It should treat students as agents of rather than passive
recipients of anti-violence reform. There is another implication here about discipline. A;
we indicated above, repressive practices help to produce violence and also prevent
victims/survivors from addressing its consequences for them as individuals.
Equally counter-productive in our research schools were approaches which failed tc
recognise that adolescence is a time at which young people are shaping up their identities
in the context of individual, and indeed economic and cultural uncertainty anc
instability. Destabilising gender can bc very disruptive, particularly for those who have
invested heavily in particular types of masculinity or femininity. This has implications for
those anti-violence programmes which seek to encourage students to rewrite their gender
identity through pedagogies which attend to the emotions. Arguably, it has particular
implications for those boys who fear ‘the feminine’ and who see no worthwhile
investment in emotional reworking; indeed, who may well see such work as risky in the
context of the pecking order of schoolboy culture. Clearly a pedagogy of the emotions need;
to bc carefully thought through. It must attend to the ways in which the big picture i;
represented in students’ emotional worlds and it also must help them develop the
‘emotional intelligence’ (Goleman, 1996) to understand the implications of their emotion;
for the ways they behave. We will offer some suggestions for such a pedagogy shortly
A final point to be made about the sociocultural perspective is that despite it;
sociological insights, this set of approaches generally fails to attend to one set of schoo
practices which is particularly complicit in producing violence. We refer to the relation;
of power between adults and children, a particular feature of schooling, and particularly
to the verbal, emotional and sometimes physical violence associated with certair
disciplinary practices. Such understandings of violence are likely to make teachers anc
policy-makers uncomfortable. But let us take a closer look to see why.

Poisonous Pedagogy
Alice Miller’s work offers new insights into the relationship between schools and violence
Generally, her ideas suggest that mass education, with its penchant for order and control
and for privileging the rational and the instrumental over the relational and affective
provides a fertile seed-bed for advancing the culture of violence through ‘poisonous
pedagogy’. Sendak commenting on Miller’s (1987a) work says
She makes chillingly clear to the many what has been recognised only by the

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few: the extraordinary pain and psychological suffering inflicted on children
under the guise of conventional child rearing practices.

Miller’s studies raise questions about the dominant idea that teacher-student relation­
ships are based principally on care. The idea of breaking the will of the child by force
or by connivance in order that he or she can be controlled is no stranger to education,
which is structured around the power relationships between adults and children. Indeed,
school organisation depends upon such control and almost invariably the needs of the
organisation and the teachers take precedence over those of the child. In a sense then,
schools repeat the poisonous pedagogies that many children have been exposed to in the
home.
Miller’s ideas also question the extent to which it is wise for schools to move down the
late twentieth-century path of increasingly rational curriculum development encouraged
by our economically rationalist curriculum policy-makers. Let us consider this issue a
little more closely.
The structures and discourses of contemporary education are built on a foundation of
rationality. Built into the organisation of learning is an overwhelming faith in the orderly
pattern of human affairs. This extends from the dominant ideas about intelligence
through to methods for teaching particular subjects. This faith is also reflected in
approaches to violence. Take two examples. Some schools have relied on pedagogies of
authority in an attempt to control ‘outbreaks of violence’. Strict codes of behaviour have
been enforced inspired by the regimes of discipline used in industry and the military.
Other schools have used counselling methods designed to effect conflict resolution via
approaches involving ‘talking through the problems’. While apparently different, this
draws on the same underlying faith in rationality. However, when it comes to issues of
violence, this faith in human rationality becomes unstable. (Fitzclarence, 1992)
For Scheff & Retzingcr (1991) any adequate interpretation of patterns of violence
involves a consideration of complex emotional responses such as shame, rage, alienation,
humiliation and repression and revenge. However, such a lexicon is hardly the concep­
tual material of ‘rational’ education discourses. Indeed it is alien to them. Nonetheless,
the absence of an adequate pedagogy of the emotions has serious consequences. Miller’s
ideas imply that the replacement of the expressive and creative aspects of the curriculum
with instrumental, cognitive-based regimes may actually reduce the capacity of education
to break what Miller (1987) describes as the ‘vicious circle of contempt’ which character­
ises inter-generational patterns of violence. To ignore the emotional world of schooling
and of students and teachers is to contribute to the repressions which recycle and
legitimate violence.
Miller’s work thus raises doubts about professional development and a curriculum on
violence which only appeals to people’s rationality and which assumes that teachers and
students have rational control over their behaviours. Her work points to the probability
that such reforms on violence are likely to touch deep psychic sensitivities and invest­
ments, particularly for certain students and teachers; victims, survivors, perpetrators and
those who arc complicit and in different ways draw on the patriarchal dividend. It thus
casts some doubt on those reforms which overlook the powerful role of emotion in the
teaching/learning process and suggests that we may well rely too heavily on students’
and teachers’ goodwill and rationality in attempts to effect change. The challenge here,
then, is to work with and through the emotions and to look to other fields of inquiry
which may help us to do this. This quest has led us to turn to therapy for ideas; not, we
stress, to the sort of self-absorbed, ahistorical and culturally decontextualised therapy

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which Connell (1995, pp. 206—212) critiques as ‘masculinity therapy’, in what he
scathingly describes as ‘Books about Men’. Instead we have turned to narrative therapy
in order to explore its implications for pedagogy.
Narrative Therapy and its Implications for Anti-violence Pedagogy

In an attempt to get beyond the limitations of social and psychological theories that are
not sensitive enough to the reflexive and dynamic nature of humanity and social life,
White & Epston (1990) have turned to narrative and have developed narrative therapyin their counselling practice at the Dulwich Centre in South Australia. They use the
‘story’ metaphor to explore the perpetual process of identity construction through
meaning making. Their following statement explains this perspective:
In striving to make sense of life, persons face the task of arranging their
experiences of events in sequences across time in such a way as to arrive at a
coherent account of themselves and the world around them. Specific experi­
ences of events of the past and present, and those that are predicted to occur
in the future, must be connected in a lineal sequence to develop this account.
This account can be referred to as a story or self narrative. (White & Epston,
1990, p. 10)
According to White (1992, p. 123), people live and shape their lives by stories. These
stories, he argues, ‘have real, not imagined effects’; they ‘provide the structure of life’.
Narrative therapy offers individuals and groups a means for remaking the dominant
story-lines which have governed their lives. It encourages them to search for alternative
stories—to search for accounts that contradict or resist the dominant individual and
socio-cultural stories through which their lives have been constructed and through which
they have constructed their lives. This involves a process of ‘externalising’ the problem
with its attendant feelings through the use of story and also of identifying critical
moments which tell a different story. Through such a process it becomes possible for the
dominant narrative to be resisted. White refers to such moments as ‘unique outcomes’.
He describes these moments when an invitation to retell the dominant story of a
particular problem is resisted and a new meaning is established. In the case of
perpetrators of violence, this process also encourages them to accept responsibility for
their actions and for the consequences of previous behaviours. In turn, this becomes a
process of shaping a new and alternative story-line through which to rebuild identity and
relationships. The following example is derived from an exchange between a therapist
and a violent offender. It highlights the start of a restorying process designed to facilitate
new action.
Can you remember a time when you took action to stop/prevent violence
yourself? Can you remember a time when you made a stand against your own
violence and did not expect your partner to do it for you? How did you do it?
(Jenkins, 1990, p. 87)
In our view there are several advantages to be gained in using ideas drawn from
narrative therapy to address the problems of violence in schools. Firstly, as Kehily &
Nayak (no date) vividly demonstrate, storying is a key feature of schooling and of
students’ and teachers’ ways of making meaning about their place in schools. Secondly,
the indeterminate nature of storytelling suggests that collective and individual stories and
identities are fluid and can therefore be rewritten or retold—albeit not easily. For both
perpetrators and victims of violence, alternative stories point to the possibility of

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changing direction. To make the link to violence in education more concrete, consider
the following self-narrative of Adam from one of the research schools referred to earlier.
I have been harassed at eleven schools now. At every school I have been to I
have been the ten pound weakling. Like, I am the only kid I know with
backwards elbows! And, like, because in my job in the school I deal with the
locker grills and all that. I get harassed guaranteed at least every morning.
They just feel like throwing rocks at me, pushing me around, shoving me,
throwing me into walls.
Adam’s story is one of a good humoured victim. But what might it look like if he rewrote
it and himself as a courageous survivor and emphasised the strengths he has had to draw
on to maintain his sense of humour? A word of caution is necessary here. This is not to
suggest that tangible, material practices can be simply thought or talked out of existence.
Adam’s story makes clear that stories of violence represent harsh realities. It is to say,
however, that he is able to see himself differently in this context.
A third advantage of the narrative approach is that it enables a person’s experience
to be considered within wider frameworks of meaning. It encourages them to consider
the impact on their lives and relationships of wider cultural and social power relations.
For example, a personal story can be linked to a more general cultural story'. This helps
to develop an appreciation of the ways in which a person is situated within the dominant
story-lines of a culture or a society. Let us take some other examples of this process. The
following ‘story’ of 15 year-old Colin contains some identifiable socio-cultural themes.
Being big is great. [Laughter] No, I just walk down the road and people dodge
out of your way, ‘cause they think I’m going to hit them. Sometimes I do if
they get too close to me. So they let me go first, unless there’s a girl, I let her
go first. It’s better than being one of those school kids that keep getting pushed
around you sec. I save the rest of them, so when they get pushed around, I just
grab the other kid and smack him against the wall or something.
The story-lines represented in Colin’s self-narration have widespread currency. ‘Big is
best’ and ‘take control by force and fear’ arc cultural themes that apply in the world of
business and in law enforcement systems. Quite possibly Colin has modelled his
behaviour on one of the current stock of independent law enforcers depicted in Steven
Segal or Sylvester Stallone warrior movies. This next example shows how a teacher of
a single-sex class of ‘tough’ boys and two members of that class formed an alliance
around exaggerated hegemonic masculinity. In commenting on his relationship with the
class, the teacher notes that:
When I’m there and I’m relaxed I’m also one of the boys. You know if you
had an inexperienced man or an effeminate man or a bloke who’s too
academically inclined or something like that, then that might not work. You
might end up with a ‘them and me’ situation.
In turn Ben, a student, comments, ‘I can swear more (referring to having no girls in the
class) and Matthew, referring to how it might be different if they had a female teacher,
says:
But if say a nice woman walked past, like we couldn’t say ‘Ooh, look at her’
cause she’d look at us and say ‘That’s sexism’ and all this. But Mr Kennedy,
he’d just laugh and say ‘I’d buy that for a dollar’.
Again we sec represented some of the features of violence which we mentioned in the
first part of the paper. What has narrative therapy to offer in these instances? At a

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131

minimum it would help Colin, Mr Kennedy, Ben and Matthew to identify the
entitlement story-lines they are living their lives by and would also invite them to search
for others that are more socially and emotionally responsible. Let us consider further the
implications of narrative therapy for school’s anti-violence education programmes.
While narrative therapy has been pioneered by therapists working primarily outside of
the education system, the possibility of adaptations for work in school is now being
recognised—but not of course by the hyper-rationalists who drive school systems. At this
stage the suggestions for pedagogy which we think have the most potential are those
developed and employed by Sydney’s Men Against Sexual Assault Group (MENSA). Their
approach also builds on the strengths but avoid the weaknesses of the authoritarian and
the therapeutic approaches we outlined earlier. It also operates outside of the rationalist
frameworks which we mentioned earlier and seeks to work with and through the
anxieties of young males in particular. Without going into detail, in an environment
characterised by respect and support rather than by blaming and shaming, it explores
with students their experiences of violence and encourages them to identify the dominant
narratives which have shaped such violence (rape myths, for example) and to unpack the
cultural library of excuses which are used to justify it. However, this approach does not
stop there. It then assists students to find some positive counter-narratives; to draw out
and upon alternative sources of strength and status and to build new communities of
support for alternative ways of being male and female. Witness the following example.
David Denborough’s (1996) work on narrative therapy has been used in working with
male students in a programme designed to address emerging problems in junior
secondary schools. The process, designed to address issues of sexual harassment/violence
and by implication power relations and contested identities, demonstrates a whole-class
approach for working through issues that are clearly embedded in the dynamics of
society more generally. The process includes mapping experiences of violence, naming
the effects, inviting an articulation of the need to change and naming a counter plot. In
more specific detail the approach which Denborough advocates can be summarised as
follows:

—Beginnings—considering notions of respectful practice; a game of sex and lies;
addressing the climate.
—Mapping the extent of the violence in their lives.
—Eliciting an articulated invitation to discuss these ideas.
—Identifying the gendered nature of violence. Identifying messages and beliefs about the
dominant masculinity and exploring why it is that men are the ones who are violent
in the vast majority of instances. Looking at some key gendered messages and how
boys are encouraged and coerced into positioning themselves within them.
—Naming this dominant plot, e.g. ‘being tough’.
—Mapping the effects of this dominant plot on different social groupings.
—Inviting an articulation of the need for change.
—Finding exceptions—exploring what it means to exist in terms of hope and in terms
of what it says about them.
—Naming the counter-plot.
—Asking for an articulation that moving towards this counter-plot, a plot of resistance,
would be a good thing (for men, women—hetero- and homosexual, young people,
children).
—Building on exceptions: building on strengths—exploring how they did it; building on
histories—instances in the past that would support thinking of themselves in this new

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J. Kenway & L. Fitzdarence

way; building communities of support—who supported them, how they could find
other support.
—Reflecting on strengths: what it says about them; what significant others would think.
—Broadening the responsibility—taking their suggestions as to how they could bc
supported in their attempts to move towards ‘being themselves’, by staff, the school,
families, and the local community.

The approach outlined here is part of a layered pedagogy. This involves discussions at
a number of different levels in the school and including parents and community
members. Of particular relevance is the focus on developing respectful dialogue between
boys and girls.
We need to work with our boys and our girls—together. They have much to
learn from each other, we have much to learn from all of them. The potential
for programs in which boys and girls listen to one another’s experiences, and
develop strategics to work together against out-dated notions of gender, are
perhaps the most exciting of all. (Denborough, 1996, p. 26)
As we see it, the goal of anti-violence education is a future in which males and females,
males and males and adults and children can live alongside each other in safe, secure,
stable, respectful and harmonious ways and in relationships of mutual life-enhancing
respect.
NOTE
[1} This title is taken from Schostak (1986).

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Routledge).
Australian Institute of Criminology (1990) Violence: directions for Australia: Report of the National Committee on
Violence (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory).
CAMPBELL, A. (1994) Out of Control (London, Pandora).
CONNELL, R.W. (1995) Masculinities (Sydney, Allen & Unwin).
Denborough, D. (1996) Step by step: developing respectful and effective ways of working with young men to
reduce violence, in: C. McKean, M. CAREY & C. White Men’s Ways of Being, pp. 91-117 (Denver, CO,
Westview Press).
EPSTEIN, D. (in press) Keeping them in their place: hetero/sexist harassment, gender and the enforcement of
heterosexuality, in: J. Holiand & L. Adkins (Eds) Sex, Sensibility and the Gendered Body (London, Macmillan).
EPSTEIN, D. & White, M. (1992) Experience, Contradiction, Narrative and Imagination; selected Papers of David Epston
and Michael white, 1989-1991 (Adelaide, Dulwich Centre Publications).
FlTZClARENCE, L. (1992) Shame: the emotional straw that breaks more than backs, paper presented at the Australian
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FlTZCLARENCE, L. (1995a) Beyond adrenalin, testosterone and repressed memories: the search for an holistic
perspective on violence in schools, Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, Hobart, 26-30
November.
FlTZClARENCE, L. (1995b) Education’s shadow? Towards an understanding of violence in schools, Australian
Journal of Education, 39 pp. 22 40.
FlTZClARENCE, L. WITH WARREN, C. & Laskey, L. (1995) Schools, sexuality and violence: a case for changing
direction, in: L. Laskey & C. Beavis Schooling and Sexualities: teaching for positive sexuality (Geelong, Deakin
University Centre for Education and Change).
GlROUX, H. (1996) Fugitive Cultures: race, violence, and youth (New York, Routledge).
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GOLEMAN, D. (1996) Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than I.Q. (Bloomsbury Publishing, London, U.K.).
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Jenkins, A. (1990) Invitations to Responsibility (Adelaide, Dulwich Centre Publications).
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Kelly, L. (1987) The continuum of sexual violence, in: J. Hanmer & M. Maynard (Eds) Women, Violence and
Social Control, pp. 46-61 (London, Macmillan).
KENWAY, J. (1995) Masculinity—under siege, on the defensive, and under reconstruction, Discourse, 16,
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Kenway, J., BLACKMORE, J. & Willis S. (1996) Beyond feminist authoritarianism and therapy in the
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Salisbury, J. & JACKSON, D. (1996) Challenging Macho Values: practical ways of working with adolescent boys (London,
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Scheff T. & RETZINGER, S. (1991) Emotions and Violence (Lexington, MA, Lexington Books).
SCHOSTAK, J. (1986) Schooling the Violent Imagination, (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Weisfeld, G. (1994) Aggression and dominance in the social world of adolescent boys, in: J. Archer, J. (Ed.)
Male Violence, pp. 12-70 (London, Routledge).
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Generation (Basingstoke, Macmillan).

Gender and Education

Volume 9

Number 1

March 1997

Special Issue: Masculinities in Education

Edited by Christine Griffin & Sue Lees

Editorial

5

Bronwyn Davies. Constructing and Deconstructing Masculinities through Critical
Literacy

9

Elaine Millard. Differently Literate: gender identity and the construction of the
developing reader
Nola Alloway & Pam Gilbert. Boys and Literacy: lessons from Australia

49

Christine Hall & Martin Coles. Gendered Readings: helping boys develop as critical
readers
61
Mary Jane Kehily & Anoop Nayak. ‘Lads and Laughter’: humour and the production
of heterosexual hierarchies
69
Carolyn Dixon. Pete’s Tool: identity and sex-play in the design and technology
classroom
69

Debbie Epstein. Boyz’ Own Stories: masculinities and sexualities in schools

105

Jane Kenway & Lindsay Fitzclarence. Masculinity, Violence and Schooling: challenging
‘poisonous pedagogies’
117
BOOK REVIEWS

School Talk: gender and adolescent culture (Donna Eder with Catherine Colleen Evans &
Stephen Parker) reviewed by Ann Phoenix
135

Challenging Macho Values: practical ways of working with adolescent boys Jonathan
Salisbury & David Jackson) reviewed by John Head

137

Masculinities (R. W. Connell) reviewed by Shirley Prendergast

138

The Making of Men: masculinities, sexualities and schooling (M. Mac an Ghaill) reviewed
by Christine Griffin
139