ABSTRACT
It is increasingly recognized that gender is not only a characteristic of individuals that they take into organizations but structured into organizations and replicated through gendered processes that, in most organizations, continue to reproduce male advantage. Schools as institutions are gendered in ways that have often been built on notions that girls and boys will grow up to have different destinies. This chapter considers the relevance of gender to schooling. It draws on a range of research findings to argue that schools serve both to reproduce gendered differences as masculinities are negotiated in everyday practices and enable some boys to “do” masculinities in ways that fit with refusals of hegemonic masculinities and aim to treat all boys as equal. It argues that intersectional perspectives are central to understanding differences in racialization, social class and migration positioning among boys as well as the ways in which masculinities are relevant to everyday schooling.
