Success on the decks: working-class boys, education and turning the tables on perceptions of failure

Abstract

Although working-class boys' disengagement with education continues to be a major public concern, the focus of educational research has been on anti-school, hyper-masculine so-called laddish masculinities and their salience within learner identities. What tend to be forgotten are the areas in which low-achieving boys actively engage and succeed in their learning and what these successes mean for their identity construction. This article shows how learning practices manifest themselves in extracurricular peer subcultures by presenting the findings of two related musical activities, DJ-ing and MC-ing. In this music-making, secondary school boys in the Northeast of England showed themselves to be capable of high levels of engagement, enthusiasm and success despite generally being considered low achieving and highly disaffected. This small case study based on semistructured interviews aimed to explore how boys aged 14-16 years enact their passion through creative agency and expressive cultural processes.

‘The children have only got one education and you have to make sure it's a good one’: parenting and parent–school relations in a neoliberal age

“…Forms of differentiation change in response to the desire of the more established and secure sections of the middle classes to maintain and reproduce their advantage (as the Weis et al study shows). Research on working-class differentiation is more limited (Vincent, Ball, and Braun 2008), although recent empirical work has focused on the construction of identity in relation to education (Ingram 2011;Stahl and Dale 2013;Weis 2013).…”

‘We don’t need no education’? Exploring the educational experiences of young footballers

“…Ball 2013; Francis and Skelton 2005;House of Commons Education Committee 2014;Stahl 2015Stahl , 2016. Among UK policy-makers and politicians, the educational under-achievement of white working-class boys has most recently been explained inter alia in terms of the cultures of 'low aspiration' and anti-social behaviour said to be common among those groups, broader concerns about stagnating social mobility, and the pathologisation and responsibilisation of working-class families (particularly by the political right) (Ball 2013;Stahl 2015Stahl , 2016Stahl and Dale 2013). These explanations are part of the neo-liberal ideologies which increasingly dominate policy and approaches in education (Stahl 2015(Stahl , 2016Stahl and Dale 2013) and related fields, including professional sport in which the lives of athletes are frequently 'celebrated, sensationalized, mortified, dehumanized, and commodified' (Roderick and Gibbons 2015, 153) in the often highly individualized pursuit of success, which involves the almost constant monitoring observation, self-regulation and modification of working bodies (see Hoberman 1992;Roderick 2006;Roderick et al 2017).…”

The application of self-determination theory to support students experiencing disaffection

“…While conclusions drawn are limited in terms of generalisability, this study highlights the potential gains of discovering areas in which students devote time and energy (Stahl & Dale, 2013). For example, this may support teachers in systemic thinking: by discovering areas in which students do engage, it may become apparent that disaffection is dependent on contextual factors (Stahl & Dale, 2013).…”

“…For example, this may support teachers in systemic thinking: by discovering areas in which students do engage, it may become apparent that disaffection is dependent on contextual factors (Stahl & Dale, 2013). Accordingly, teachers may notice opportunities to deliver curriculum content creatively, capturing the values and interests of students and areas in which they feel competent (Hartas, 2011).…”

“…In this study, through observations and interviews with a small sample of adolescent boys, Stahl and Dale (2013) found students experiencing disaffection to be highly engaged in music-making, outside of school.…”