ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the life histories of two white working-class adolescent Zack and Hugh male violent offenders are juxtaposed and analysed. Although both boys initially constructed culturally idealized hegemonic masculinities, bodily and sexual practices institutionalized in the school played a major role in the construction of two differing forms of masculinity as well as corresponding types of violence. The changing constructions of masculinity exhibited by Zack and Hugh are critical to understanding the contrasting types of violence. At home, both Zack and Hugh appropriated, in different ways, a definition of masculinity that ultimately emphasized the use of physical violence to solve interpersonal problems. Indeed, both of them committed themselves to the belief that physical violence is the appropriate means for solving interpersonal problems. For both, their senses of masculinity were fashioned by their bodily relations in school and their bodies—as resources for social action—constrained or facilitated possible masculine agency and subsequent practice.
