ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the research I carried out in 2002 as part of a Doctorate in Education undertaken at the University of Sheffield. My thesis, ‘Boys will not be Boys’Understanding Masculinities: A Must in the Management of a Boys’School, considers the social practices of masculinity impacting on boys’ lives in the school I worked in then and work in now, namely a Catholic Comprehensive Boys’ Secondary School in Malta. My findings enabled me to illustrate the ways in which Maltese boys, both similar to as well as differently from, their British or Australian counterparts featured in published studies, learn the ideals and parameters for being male from the school’s masculinising practices, including the curriculum, the management system, relations and discipline among others.
