The importance of being a ‘lady’: hyper‐femininity and heterosexuality in the private, single‐sex primary school

Allan, Alexandra

doi:10.1080/09540250802213172

Cited by 63 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It is arguable that in some ways this is one of the few periods in life in which emphasised femininity (Connell, 1987) has tangible benefits. At Holly Bank, those girls who embodied it most thoroughly were the most powerful girl group in the class; this was also the case in Allan's (2008) research. As they neared the end of primary school, previously tomboy girls were increasingly feeling that they wanted access to some of these advantages, even if it meant losing their commitment to tomboyhood.…”

Section: Becoming a Girly-girl: Desire And Fear In The Abandonment Ofmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…In contrast to 'tomboy', which we ourselves introduced to the research context, it was used, often with quite explicit meaning, by the children themselves, in both schools in the study. Other researchers (Allan, 2008;Renold, 2005) have also found this characterisation in common use, alongside 'girly' (Reay, 2001), which has similar usage. The definition of both terms, however, seems to be quite mutable, and, in particular, to change some of its connotations according to the age of the children concerned.…”

Section: Outline Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The definition of both terms, however, seems to be quite mutable, and, in particular, to change some of its connotations according to the age of the children concerned. Allan (2008) notes that 'girly-girl' refers to 'a particular embodiment of hyper-femininity, both in terms of looks ('pink', 'fluffy' and 'well made up'), and also in terms of behaviour (as 'nice' and 'compliant')' (p. 6). In our research, however, looks and behaviour were separated, so that, particularly as the children grew older, being 'nice' was much less important to girliness than was the embodiment of what Renold (2005) refers to as 'the "flirty-fashion" discourse' (p. 44).…”

Section: Outline Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

Paechter

2010

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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This paper is about how nine to eleven year old children, particularly girls, coconstruct tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions. The paper sits within a theoretical framework in which I understand individual and collective masculinities and femininities as ways of 'doing man/woman' or 'doing boy/girl' that are constructed within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice. Empirical data come from a one-year study of tomboy identities within two London primary schools. The paper explores the contrasting identities of tomboy and girlygirl, how they are constructed by the children, and how this changes as they approach puberty. The findings suggest that the oppositional construction of these identities makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though it is possible to switch between tomboy and girly-girl identities at different times and places.

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Section: Becoming a Girly-girl: Desire And Fear In The Abandonment Ofmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Outline Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Outline Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

Paechter

2010

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

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“…Social class permeates these social milieus and affects the individual's sense of self, which can be carried with the person to other spaces and influence their activities. For example, in their research on both young and mature students in Britain and their choices for higher education, Reay (2004a) argued that the decisions of young people regarding their higher education are classed decisions, while Alexandra Allan, in her research on female primary school students in the UK, noted that classed identities are formed during school life, when girls are being taught how to perform as 'ladies' and be different to the working--class masses (Allan 2009). Some would also suggest that as a result of these changes girlhood has, too, been reconstituted.…”

Section: Introduction: Gender Class and Motheringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming a woman doctor in Iran: the formation of classed and gendered selves

Fathi

2016

Gender and Education

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This paper analyses the pedagogical pathways of a group of first--generation Iranian migrant doctors in the UK. It explores the complex system of class production and growing up as a classed subject in Iran, a process that ties young women's educational aspirations to female independence on the one hand and to the modern feminine, heterosexual identity that sees women as part of the patriarchal family system on the other. By using Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital and habitus (Bourdieu 1984) and Foucault's theory of surveillance (Foucault 1984), this paper analyses how migrant women's trajectories of becoming highly educated are translated into their roles as mothers. Three major aspects of pedagogical trajectories are identified in the formation of classed selves: the first is the generational surveillance within families, particularly of girls by their mothers; the second is the normalisation of pathways and the importance of destined pathways that separate certain families, practices and choices in superior positions; the third is the moralising of educational choices, which distance being a doctor from classed consciousness, giving rise to an altruistic self as opposed to a selfish one.

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“…This is not dissimilar to the tension experienced by girls attending religious schools in the 1940s where schools' commitment to equipping girls for their dual lives in 'ladylikeness' and 'domesticity', was not easily synthesized with a proliferation of new world opportunities. It remains extremely difficult for young girls today to embody the identity of 'lady' which continues to be enforced as the dominant code within the school setting, given the competing hetero-sexualized and hyper-feminized demands that require girls to be sexy as well as successful in the 21 st Century (Allan 2009). Commonly, schools still enforce a type of embodied femininity that hinges on bodily refinement and spatial confinement.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%