Avoiding Trouble in School

PhD Kevin Holger Mogensen

Department of Psychology and Educational Studies, Roskilde University

NFMM Presentation, Reykjavik 4.-6. june, 2014

DRIB(B)LE

What can we Learn from Young Mens’ Identifications within Education?

Which forms of strategies (Identification; Counter-identification; Disidentification) do young men apply in their everyday school practices? How does this relate to their available experiences and ressources for practicing different legitimate forms of masculinitiy within education?

Mickey on what he likes in school

I: What subjects it engages you the most now?

Mickey: Anything other than business administration and Spanish. The two subjects I hate. I love social studies and Danish and things like that .. Too bad I do not have social studies this year, but English and Danish are interessting, I am also pretty good in sales and service and I live up to the shedding or semester tests or whatever it's called and the proficiency mark I got 10 in English of course, so it's not like that .. The subjects I can find out. I do not just put myself in the other subjects when I do not need it and it's hard to engage in something you do not want to bother with, I think. I will not need it for anything I go to school just to have something to do until it is time to get in the military after all.

I: And how can you be here when you know that you should not use it?

Mickey: You must of course comply with your (allowed) absence and things like that. I'm doing my stuff in the other subjects of course, but Karen (a teacher) you talked to her also able to go along with that I’am not working at all. I have not finished a single assignment and I have not submitted anything. I told her my (about my) dream and what I am after, then she said that it is fine enough that I do, if I don’t interfere, so I just sit there by myself and watching YouTube.

Mickey on his relationsship with his peers

I: What does this means for your relationships with the other pupils?

Mickey: The ones I go along with are doing nothing, does not know shit. There are another group who work hard every day, but I think even I'm such a little .. My group is slaggers lot of them I think .. We're not doing anything, but they need their training for something?

Kenny on his experiences with girlfriend, house and dogs – no car

Kenny: So we found a house and bought a dog. Bought two dogs and all. And I was 17 years old huh, but then I thought "Arrrj, I had just a few things I would experience in my life before I settled down." But I still worked as a bricklayer and had made some alright money. I just came home until eight in the evening or something, because I did not have a driver's license at the time and even now, I don’t, unfortunately.

Kenny on his relationships with his ‘peers’• Kenny: The girls did not talk about anything else than cock and tits ..

well. Three years after we started school. So they had a meeting where they should talk about cock and tits in class, right? I thought that it was a little (to much).. And everything had to happen now for them. They were all just maybe under 18 or just come out of 9th grade and then everything should be done here and now. And the guys they need to be tougher than the others, and the girls must look better than the other and I could not take it and I could not cope.

Kenny on Life

"Don't take life too seriously you will never get out of it alive“

(Tatoo inscription on Kennys forearm)

The Tackle and Dribble of young men in education• For minoritarian subjects, disidentifikation is a ‘survival strategy, of

hybrid transformations that serve to resist and confound socially prescriptive patterns of identification. Against the homogenization and assimilation of (queer) identities

• Encoding/decoding – The work of articulation (Stuart Hall) connecting different forms of identification fx the social and the formal dimension of the learner subject position, and in the ex. Of being hailed or interpelated into a certain subject position and practice.

Different (new) kinds of resistance and opposition to education and schoolingArticulating the time – out and time – in relation to educationWant a good life – need an education – and earn lots of moneyRole models are Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple Guru Steve Jobs – dont think small or their fathersGeneral critique of the education – personal misrecognition of the ‘other’ pupil – and the ambivalent experience with the teachers – the social dimension of schooling gives priority to social relation and status in the group along with the formal educational expectations

How is this gendered and it which ways can we see an development in the young mens’ attitudes towards education and work – employment and carriers and familly?

Especially we want to see what happens when young men are identified as lousy learners by the educational system and the school professionals

Understanding young men’s meaningfull practices of education and schooling and masculinity

• And how (if?) the young men can deploy tactics and strategies to maintain a legitimate position in education and school practices.

• Looking further into which young men becomes ‘drop outs’ or ‘re-electors’ and which kind of experiences that leads to the development of personal subjective and social strategies towards finishing school and getting a degree or a job

• And finally, offcourse – We try to read this as specific gendered responses to wider structural societal challenges of young mens masculinity within education.

The production of Educational Marginalinality – Powerful Identifications of Young Men’s Learning

The Disidentifications of young Men in response to ideology and the interpellation of education and school

• it has become difficult for some young Men to stay clear from formal youth education and not fulfilling their duties.

• There still exists attractive and alternative paths to formal education for some boys and young men to become men – earning wage, get an job, make a familiyliving. Though as it shows,

New forms of masculinity and strategies to counter emerging structures and representations and discourses and practices of specific hegemonic masculinity in relation to education

• Articulations

• Disruptions

Mickey on his motivation for wanting to become a Military PoliceYes. What do you mean by ‘that you learn’? What you may well .. What are you supposed to learn?MIckey: In Comerce?

I: No, I think of the military?

Mickey: I'm learning, First, I learn the discipline I actually learn something about it (MP) and so a lot of..(uh) because it is MPs deals with people and that you can be good to people and I'm fairly good for people .. Open and things like that, so it would be perfect for me, I seem to get such a job and working with people then.

I: One can also do well in many other places, or?

Mickey: It could be good, but I've always wanted to join the military after all and I have felt .. You obviously helps the kids (as a teacher) and you can also, if you read to the teacher, but of course if you are military officer down here (Afghanistan) and help those who are a little more severely affected.. This I would like to participate in.

Moving beyond resistance through rituals and learning to labour

From breadwinner to school pupil and back