The aim of this study has been to examine, describe and analyze how masculinities can be represented and understood among boys in a Swedish primary school context. The study was conducted within a school located in a small community on the country side. Through the use of a qualitative research design we interviewed 13 boys from the fifth grade of this school, who all got to express and reason their perspectives of what it meant to them to be a boy in primary school and how that could impact their social life. For a wider understanding of the different dimensions of masculinity we used R.W. Connell's (2008) theoretical framework, hegemonic masculinity, which implies that there are multiple definitions of masculinities that are constructed in relation to each other in a hierarchical order. Hereby every man is positioned in a hierarchical order depending on to which degree he embodies the ideal conceptions of how a man should be within the specific context. These ideal conceptions are further more constantly changing and therefore alter through both time and space. The results of this study could show that ideals more commonly related to the concept of being a man from a regional perspective in society also could be found in the specific and local school context. In line with previous studies, this research could also indicate that boys who deviate to far from the existing ideal conceptions of how a boy should be, was combined with a much greater risk of being excluded from the fellowship among the boys in the class. This was made identifiably distinctive in cases where boys surpassed the masculine ideals and instead practiced such ideals that were more commonly associated with girls. The study could also show that in order to reach a high level of status as a boy in school seemed to imply that you had to adapt to the norms being set by the dominating group. This concludes that the dominating group of boys in the class also, to a high degree, was in power of controlling and changing the ideals that all the other boys then in some ways had to relate to.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-27614 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Gummesson, Axel, Göransson, Anton |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA), Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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