ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to contribute to contemporary scholarship on research methodology with young people, as well as school-based ethnographies exploring masculinities. Drawing on a broader ethnographic study investigating race, masculinities and schooling in post-apartheid South Africa, the chapter reflects specifically on work with young men considered as "troublesome". Additionally, critical ethnographers aim to alter or transform social realities and are particularly concerned with how their positionality impacts on and influences the research process and analysis. Young men reflected that the nature of their relationships with male teachers are fraught and often turns violent. The incident was not only indicative of the fraught nature of the relationship between teachers and particular young men, but also the coping strategies young men employ to deal with abusive language and intimidation. Moreover, it is evident that Mr. X fails to recognize how his actions feed into young men's contempt for him, also how it encourages particular aggressive forms of resistance.
