ABSTRACT
This chapter is about how gender order is enacted in a multi-ethnic co-educational physical education class located in an area of low socio-economic status. Using the joint action conceptual framework of the French didactique tradition, it explores the schooling experiences of girls and boys in a multi-ethnic middle school. Through three nested timescales of didactical analysis, it scrutinizes how gendered learning emerges as a by-product of classroom interactions. The findings point out that gendered learning among girls and boys goes through a complex process in which participants’ epistemic gender positioning intersects with their cultural/ethnic backgrounds through micro-social interactions related to particular curricular contents within a particular context. The analysis reveals that not all girls are dominated when playing games, and not all boys reinforce hegemonic masculinity in the class. Each student occupies a specific niche in relation to the meaning she/he gives to the teacher’s expectations and how she/he negotiates the meaning of her/his practice within the peer group. Finally, some implications are pointed out in terms of feminist emancipatory pedagogies for schools located in underprivileged areas.
