ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief portrait of the community of Woodland and Van Buren High School. It makes visible the internal organization of the school, the underlying dominant adult values regarding sexual behavior and language, and student contestation of them. The chapter describes the hierarchical gender code as manifested in school ritual and faculty gender arrangements and explores the impact of staff gender relations on the issue of sexual abuse and assault in everyday student life. It also demonstrates how racial dynamics work their way through these situations. Van Buren's Administrators and staff also seem proud of the school's generally firm approach to discipline. Mrs. Warren, who is regarded highly as a health teacher by district and school administrators as well as her peers, perceives that an absence of parental complaints and procedural difficulties are valued more highly by Van Buren administrators than curriculum planning and classroom pedagogy.
