Policing Sex/Gender Boundaries: Addressing Homophobia in Schools

Wayne Martino

Paper Presented as part of the Symposium, Sexualities and the

Intellectual Work of Gender Reform, at the AARE Annual Conference,

Brisbane, 30 November- 4 December, 1997

Abstract

In this paper attention is drawn to the ways in which sexuality is

deployed within heterosexist regimes of practice through which

adolescent boys enact a particular form of masculinity. By drawing on

interview data with a group of boys attending a catholic high school in

metropolitan Perth, the role of homophobia as a mechanism for policing

hegemonic forms of masculinity and enforcing compulsory heterosexuality

is emphasised. This forms the basis for arguing that attempts must be

made to address such forms of violence in schools. The implications of

this research for addressing homophobia in schools is signalled within

an overall framework for assisting students and teachers to understand

the extent to which sexuality is used to police sex/gender boundaries.

Introduction

In this paper I want to draw attention to the effects of homophobic

harassment on students attending one particular catholic co-educational

high school in Perth, Western Australia. Through drawing on my doctoral

research, I intend to illustrate that the policing of hegemonic forms

of masculinity relates to the deployment of sexuality within

normalising regimes of practice in which those students who are

perceived to be different are discriminated against (see Nayak &

Kehily, 1996; Epstein, 1997). The data is used to highlight the

pervasive role of homophobia in the lives of adolescent boys attending

this particular school. In fact, on the basis of this research, it is

argued that understanding the role that homophobia plays in regulating

sex/gender boundaries is a necessary duty of care issue for those

working in schools (see Nickson, 1996; Martino, 1997). Moreover, as

Epstein (1997) and Nayak & Kehily (1996) illustrate, enacting hegemonic

forms of masculinity is imbricated in regimes of compulsory

heterosexuality.

The data are strategically deployed in this paper to draw attention to

the power of confessional practices in mobilising student discourses

about homophobia in schools (see Mills, 1996). In this sense the

interviews proved to be a powerful means by which a particular

knowledge about homophobic regimes of practice could be produced. It is

argued that documenting these discourses or voices for those working in

schools constitutes a means by which the latter may develop a greater

understanding of how sexuality functions as a mechanism for policing

narrow and restricted gender categories. This may be the first step in

helping teachers and adminstrators to develop pastoral care programs

which set the following as their targets:

(i) breaking down barriers which obstruct individuals in schools being

treated justly;

(ii) combating fear, ignorance and the perpetration of any form of

violence that results from such discrimination.

I also want to add that while I draw on research into adolescent

masculinities to illustrate the effects of homophobia on certain kinds

of boys, the points I raise about the need to deal with such forms of

sex-based harassment also apply to girls in schools. However, it is

important to emphasise that the limits of this study do not preclude

the need to reiterate, from the outset, that both boys and girls are

involved in policing gender and sexuality in schools through engaging

in diverse forms of harassment and bullying (see Lees, 1986; 1993). On

this basis, it is argued that it is necessary for those working in

schools to develop a greater awareness of how both girls and boys use

sexuality to demarcate heterosexual boundaries for establishing narrow

and restricted versions of masculinity and femininity (see Renew, 1996;

Mason & Tomsen, 1997).

Interviewing Adolescent Boys

Interviews with three boys, aged 15-16, are referred to in this paper.

They attended a private co-educational school in Perth, Western

Australia and were from a white middle class background. They were

asked to participate in a study which was attempting to document their

thoughts and opinions about school and their relations with their peers

(see Martino, in preparation). These interviews are selected to

highlight the need to address the pervasive role of homophobia in the

policing of hegemonic heterosexual masculinities in schools (see Laskey

& Beavis, 1996).

Interview with Steve: Rejecting the homophobic practices of the

"footballers"

At this particular school the "footballer-surfie kind of guys" were

identified as the dominant group in Year 10. The reasons for this, as

documented by many of the interviewees, were:

(i) the size of the peer group (at least twenty boys formed part of

this network and were clearly a visible presence on the oval during

lunch and recess);

(ii) the identification of most of boys who formed part of this group

as actively involved in football.

Steve was once a member of this group but had since rejected 'the

footballers'. He indicated that this was related to the fact that they

continually 'picked on' him. One of the other boys mentioned that Steve

was not accepted because "he had a big head"! In his interview, Steve

draws attention to the way 'the footballers' relate to one another and,

since he had been the brunt of their abusive practices, he openly

expresses dissaproval of these boys and joins another group where "you

can just be yourself". Later on in the interview Steve elaborates on

the sex-based harrassment directed at other boys perpetrated by certain

members of the 'footballer' group. He also provides a brief overview of

the way he sees other friendship groups at this particular school:

50 Wayne: Can you to explain to me how you see your friendship group in

relation to other friendship groups at the school. Is it different

from other groups of guys that hang around together?

51 Steve: Yeah 'cause we don't hassle other people or do anything like

that. There's three groups, right?

52 Wayne: In Year10?

52 Steve: Yeah there's sort of Smith and his mates - all their group

that hangs around the oval. And then there's sort of our - oh there's

about four actually...And then there's ours. And a group that hangs

around the basketball court. And then there's that sort of... how

would you name that group? ... Dan Brent, Ben Green - all that group.

And then there's another group - they sort of - well Smith's group

think they're all faggots.

55 Wayne: They think who's a faggot?

56 Steve: The fourth group which is Murray, Rob Murray, Friedman.

57 Wayne: So how do you know that they think they're faggots?

58 Steve: 'Cause I used to hang around with them.

59 Wayne: So they used to talk about them?

60 Steve: Yeah!

61 Wayne: Why? What leads them to label them in that way, do you

think?

62 Steve: Maybe because the other group that hang around - they're

girls and boys. So they like sit around in a circle. They'll sit around

with girls and everything whereas Smith and all that, they'd sit around

just boys and then the girls would be off somewhere else, so they used

to think these guys had a bit of feminine side to them, so they'd tell

them they're poofters or something like that.

65 Wayne: What made them make that judgement - because the girls were

there - they talked to girls?

66 Steve: I dunno. Well Ryan, he's got a sort of a poofter voice which

everyone picks up and gives him shit about.

67 Wayne : And he's a part of that group?

68 Steve : Yeah

69 Wayne : Right

70 Steve : And then Friedman, well he was, there was a rumour going

around that he got kicked out, or he left X school because he got

caught wanking himself or something like that - I'm not quite sure. So

everyone labelled him as a 'faggot'. But I talk to him all the time,

he's all right. We associate with this group all the time, so it's all

right.

71 Wayne : So you're saying these boys who talk and sit with the girls

get treated badly by just that one group, by the 'footballers'?

76 Steve : Yeah, they're teased yeah.

What is interesting is that Ryan and Friedman are members of two

distinct friendship groups. Ryan has a small group of friends who are

all girls, but Steve places him in the same group as 'the handballers'

- those boys who are distinguished as 'non-footballers' - who also

sometimes sit and talk to girls during the break. Perhaps this is

beside the point because Ryan, and other boys who form part of 'the

handballer' group, are targeted by the 'footballers' on the basis of

their assumed homosexuality.They are differentiated by the

'footballers' on a number of counts, but primarily in terms of their

engagement in hand ball and their association with girls as friends.

This leads them to be viewed as having "a bit of a feminine side to

them" and forms the basis for attributions of homosexuality. Moreover,

Ryan is considered to have a 'poofy voice' and Freedman (Dave) also has

a reputation from a previous school because he 'got caught wanking

himself'. What this data draws attention to is the pervasive regime of

homophobic practices and strategies of surveillance that certain boys

use to police sex/gender boundaries. The 'footballers' play a major

part in regulating the boundaries of heterosexual masculinity at this

particular school. In short, as Steve reiterates, those boys who fail

to 'measure up' to heterosexist norms are targeted and subjected to

forms of sex-based harasment.

Homophobic harassment and its effects: Interview with James

As demonstrated by the interview with Steve, individual boys become the

target of homophobic harassment within the context of a wider regime of

social practices at school in which a dominant form of heterosexual

masculinity is policed (see Ward, 1995; Butler, 1996; Mills, 1996;

Epstein, 1997; Nayak & Kehily, 1996). James, a Year 12 student who has

been the brunt of homophobic abuse, used the space of the interview to

try to make sense of why he had been targeted. He recounts a series of

experiences involving encounters with various groups of boys on the bus

that he would catch to and from school. On his way to school one

morning, a group of boys from one of the local high schools, who was

sitting at the back of the bus, started calling him names. Initially,

he was targeted as an "Art boy" because he was carrying an Art file.

But the harassment escalated and they began calling him 'fag boy' and

started to throw coins and bits of paper at him. Moreover, he feels

that what exacerbated the harassment was the fact that one of his

friends, Andrew, who always caught the bus with him, was a Year 9 boy

aged 14. He describes Andrew in the following way:

To me he is like my little brother because I don't have a little

brother, he just comes over whenever he wants and does whatever he

wants, he's good to be around. Even though people might think why hang

around with a 14 year old but I don't really care because he is like a

good friend an he like catches the bus, he always follows me around

sometimes.

Anyway, the homophobic harassment persists and Andrew also becomes

caught up in the abuse that is directed at James, with their sexuality

being brought into question. The boys at the back of the bus

continually target James and Andrew, calling out names like "fag Art

boy" and throwing things at both boys. James indicates that he started

to get really angry and tried to ignore the harassment. Eventually he

ends up by catching another bus in an attempt to avoid being targeted.

However, another group of Year 10 students from his own school start to

harass him in much the same way as the previous group of boys from the

local high school:

This time it was a group of guys from this school. I mean it sounds

like pretty stupid, I'm 17 and they're 15 but I'm not the sort of

person who wants to stand up to them and get physically involved

because I know they will say, "Yeah, what are you going to do?" and if

I say something else he'll just go smack and then if I hit him back

it'll start something else. Looking at me you wouldn't think I would

last in a fight, would you, because I'm pretty bloody thin. I'm not

exactly the biggest of builds. I know that, people see that, and I know

it for a fact so I avoid fights, but I'm not saying I'm totally

hopeless.....Anyway, they started throwing little bits of paper and

that went on for a few days and I was getting really annoyed. Andrew

used to catch the bus as well, and this is another label thing that

really annoyed me because I could hear them calling out "fag boy" and

stuff like that, these year 10 guys. They would throw bits of paper and

stuff and then Andrew used to always catch the bus with me and then he

got billowed. If I didn't catch the bus and Andrew was there they would

just go, "Oh, where's your boyfriend, you fag?" you know and things

like that and he would come and tell me.

In order to avoid this kind of harassment James and Andrew once again

catch two different buses. But somehow they can't seem to escape the

homophobic harassment. As James is standing at the bus stop where he is

waiting for another connection, the bus that he used to catch goes by

and those Year 10 boys, with their heads hanging out of the windows,

start screaming homophobic abuse at him all over again:

And this bus goes passed almost every day of the year and every time

I'd get 'art boy', 'faggie', 'you're going to die poofter', 'fuck you',

hands out of windows, heads screaming like the back quarter of the bus

and I'm thinking, 'Yeah, great guys!' and Andrew who is with me is just

looking around and I go, 'It's ok, it's all for me, fella.'

And this leads James to question why he has become the target of such

homophobic practices. The effects of such abuse are clearly documented

in his interview. He appears to lack a lot of confidence in himself

which is reflected, throughout the interview, in his attempt to search

for reasons and explanations for the homophobic harassment he receives:

I mean like I don't even know these people and they call me 'Art boy'

because I've got my file. No matter how many people are there at the

bus stop they always do it, no matter what,, and I don't know why. I

mean I don't know why these people insist on labelling, singling me

out, they don't even know me. Maybe I look like a fag or something or

I deserve to be called a fag because I do Art, hey, I just can't stand

it. The thing that really irritates is the fact that the bus is full of

all these students from other schools as well and you can see them they

just look out for me and they just go, "Yeah, those guys must be

right!" They just look at you while the idiots at the back are abusing

you and they just look and think, "What's going on?" or you know, "Oh,

yeah, he looks like a fag" or they just look at you blankly, They don't

really give a shit and you think one of them might turn around and say,

you know, "What the hell are you doing that for? You don't even know

him."

It would appear that James is desperate for someone to offer him some

kind of support in a situation in which he feels quite helpless and

angry. This call for help, which is underscored by an appeal to a sense

of justice which he believes should motivate others to act on his

behalf, is also indicated in his reference to the need for bus drivers

to address the problem:

Almost every day when I catch the bus in the afternoon, I mean the bus

I catch now in the afternoon there is hardly anyone on it. I like to

catch a bus, now when I go home from school I just like to be on my

own. I hate it when there's groups of people coming my way, I get very

intimidated because of all this shit...I get really intimidated easily

now... you think the bus driver might have done something like stop the

bus and say don't do that, don't hang your heads out of the window. I

mean one driver did but it's never the same driver, but one driver did

once and I thought, "Oh, shit, they're going to get off and big mouth

me or something and say, 'it's your fault, fag boy.'" ...It's that sort

of shit that is bloody irritating you know, just because I've got a

file and I do art, I'm a fag boy. I mean its probably stupid in a way

that we all consider them 'cool'. We don't actually think they're

'cool' but because they're in their group with their friends they think

they're cool.

As a consequence of being subjected to such experiences, James has lost

a great deal of self-esteem:

Because like the shit that I have had to put up with for almost the

last year from these idiots and those dickheads from other schools who

I don't know, it sort of gets to you. It's like I've got a chip on my

shoulder. It's like if I see a group of people when I walk home from

the bus stop the people walk towards me and I'm walking their way I

feel intimidated so that I have to look at the ground of just look the

other way. I don't want to look them in the eye. I mean I've had plenty

of bad experiences with people and with all the shit I've been given.

James' comments have been included at length to draw attention to the

pervasive role of homophobic harassment in this school community. In

light of this research, it would appear that whole school approaches to

dealing with such forms of sex-based harassment are necessary (see

Mills, 1996). Definite attempts must also be made to provide

professional development for teachers which attempts to raise

awareness about the effects of dominant forms of heterosexual

masculinity and how these impact on the lives of students in schools

(see Gender Equity Taskforce, 1997; Martino & Mellor, 1995). By

interviewing students and documenting their experiences for both staff

and other students, an understanding of the specific effects of

homophobic harassment and other practices can be targeted. This of

course equally applies to the role that sexuality plays in the way that

girls are policed and police themselves within normalising regimes of

practice.

The limits of heterosexual masculinities: Interview with Dave

Another boy, Dave, also talked at length about the homophobic

harassment he received at the hands of a particular group of boys while

attending a single sex catholic school. In fact, due to the levels of

such forms of abuse and the school's refusal to adequately address the

harassment, his mother decided to withdraw him. He was enrolled at the

co-educational school where this research was conducted. Earlier in his

interview he mentions the harassment that he was subjected to at his

former school:

17 Wayne: So how did these guys hassle you at school?

18 Dave: It was largely on the subject of being gay.

19 Wayne: So they targeted you and other guys as well?

20 Dave: Yeah, they targeted me, another guy, there might have been a

couple of others, but it was largely associated with the fact that a

lot of the things we did were perhaps stereotypical of what they saw as

being related to homosexuality.

21 Wayne: Like?

22 Dave: Like at the time I did ballet, and the guy I knew, his posture

and manner and everything he did was supposedly leading towards

something that they suspect that he would turn out homosexual. So, they

abused him for that, and me for that. I remember a couple of others, I

can't remember what they did, but I remember distinctly that they were

harassed for being homosexual. Well, they weren't, but they were seen

as homosexual, whether they had a girlfriend or not, it was just that

they paid no attention to sort of the facts.

Here attention is drawn to a regime of normalising practices in which

homophobic strategies are used to target those boys who are identified

as homosexual on the basis of their posturing, manner or involvement in

ballet. Thus, there are certain mannerisms and performative practices

involving body posturing, as well as the kind of voice a boy has, which

lead particular boys to be categorised as gay. And furthermore, such

practices are imbricated in the way that many boys learn to establish

their masculinities through differentiating themselves from anything

that smacks of femininity or homosexuality.

What is particularly interesting is that Dave in his interview

explicitly mentions the role of girls in terms of their higher level of

maturity which is implicitly tied to their tendency to 'nullify' the

violence that is enacted by boys against other boys. This highlights

the differences he encountered between the single sex boys' school and

the coeducational school he is now attending in terms of the varying

levels and overt enactment of homophobic violence in each of the above

mentioned educational sites. In fact, he appears to be suggesting that

such a 'culture' of violence was officially endorsed and socially

sanctioned in the single sex catholic boys' school he attended:

43 Dave: I remember from say Year 5 that there were these very strong,

very anti-homosexual feelings, everyone was very much against it. Maybe

because, knowing that in the school, at this private catholic school,

the all-boys school, it was felt that obviously it was not socially

acceptable and that it was very bad to feel like that. If you were a

homosexual, it was very bad, it was against what society is meant to

be. The values that they experienced, it said that homosexuals were

just a lower form.

44 Wayne: So how did they know if someone was homosexual?

45 Dave: No, they don't. They assume, if they like the person, they

won't press it, if they don't like the person, which is usually the

case, that is if they show any sign of weakness or compassion then

other people jump to conclusions and bring them down. So really it's a

survival of the fittest. It's not very good to be sensitive. If you

have no feeling and compassion or anything like that, you would survive

in a place like that.

46 Wayne: So they might target you if you're sensitive? Is that what

you're saying? As homosexual?

47 Dave: Well, I think they'd start first if they really wanted to get

you. They'd target your areas where you do really well, that you're

outstanding in. They'll manipulate that in such a way as to make it

seem unacceptable. A lot of people, very few people, have an ability to

lead as in they can lead people like sheep. So you've got sort of this

shepherd and he gets this idea in his head that this person is

unacceptable for what he's doing, because of this, this and this ,

which he manipulates from the situation. He says to his sheep, alright

this guys wrong, I'm criticising him because he does this, this and

this, you do it too. So the sheep follow one another and they go ahead

and do this and totally destroy this person who was maybe outstanding

and they don't care. Once they've done that, either they can work on

something else that they think needs to be brought down or they'll go

and work on another victim which is I suppose a kind of simplified way

of saying it but this is how it happens. They definitely have no

remorse, they just keep going and they methodically cut down person

after person until there are a very few shepherds who still have that

hold over other people, and the sheep which may be joined by those who

have broken down, or maybe just the sort of flip side of the same coin

to the type of person that the shepherd is like, and becomes another

destroyer. So, it's pretty grim.

48 Wayne: It's not too good.

49 Dave: This is my own personal point of view. Maybe it's a bit

extremist but it's just the way I see what happened to me in that

environment. And now that I'm out of that environment, I've had a

chance to analyse it and sort of observe it. I'm not viewing it with

any emotions but seeing it analytically - this is what they do and how

they do it.

Thus Dave uses the space of the interview as a form of therapy, but

also as means by which he is able to make some sense of his

experiences. Attention is drawn in his interview to a regime of

bullying practices in which those boys who are sensitive or who display

'any sign of weakness' risk becoming targets of homophobic violence at

the hands of a 'pack' of other boys who acquire and maintain a status

at the top of a pecking order of masculinities (see Connell, 1987).

This is highlighted in Dave's reference to the 'survival of the

fittest' which once again signals that he is drawing on a particular

body of gendered knowledge which is grounded in a form of biological

determinism to account for the behaviour of his peers. Such behaviours,

which involve enacting a form of power, are interpreted, in this

particular instance, as specifiable instances of boys publicly enacting

and performing a stylised form of heterosexual masculinity ( see Nayak

& Kehily, 1996). This power is also constructed in terms of the

shepherd metaphor which is deployed to illustrate the effect of a

regime of practices in which many boys are constructed as blindly

following a leader like sheep. Within such a regime the requirement to

deny feeling and sensitivity - to act tough - is enforced through

engaging in a set of practices in which those boys who visibly exhibit

behaviours imputed to homosexuals or engage in practices deemed to be

sex-inappropriate for boys, risk being targeted and harassed at school.

Many of the boys interviewed draw attention to the ways in which

sexuality is deployed to police sex/gender boundaries and some of

specific occasions on which it occurs in their peer groups. What is

particularly interesting about Dave's final comment in the excerpt

above is that it draws attention to the techniques he is deploying to

make sense of his experiences at his previous school. Being physically

removed from that environment enables him to stand outside and to

develop quite specific capacities for analysing the ways in which

particular modalities of power are operationalised within certain

normalising regimes of practice.

Dave is then asked about what life is like for him at his current

school and whether he has experienced this kind of harassment there.

While he claims that he has not encountered forms of violence and abuse

on the same level, he does mention how the 'footballers', when he first

came to the school, targeted him in this way. He talks about how the

footballers knew some of the boys from his previous school and

continued the homophobic abuse that they had enacted against him.

However, due to the influence of girls in this co-educational community

he seems to be highlighting the extent to which the effects and

perpetration of such forms of violence were nullified:

53 Dave: Generally I think that I'm accepted here now and I seem to be

respected even though I might not be liked by everyone. I'm respected

and that's what I really want. But I do remember in Year 9 when I first

came to this school, word had seeped from X school by friends who know

friends who know friends and all that type of thing, to young boys at

this school about my exploits in ballet which I had done for six years

and which was a very big thing. In fact the year that I left was the

worst because I recently won an award for the best dancer in Western

Australia. So when I came here, it was like the pinnacle of what was

socially unacceptable. I was at the top level of what is socially

unacceptable, I was the worst of the worst, get away, keep away,

destroy, bring down. So this school I think pretty much at first was

like the other school in some ways but I think with the girls here, I

don't know, it was an overall a more mature environment because of the

influence of maybe this community and the women, the girls who are in

the school community offer a bit of maturity to the boys. So I think

it's an overall mature community so I don't think I was treated as

badly. At first I was still condemned for what I did by some boys but I

had friends now that were willing to stand up for what I thought, no

matter what I thought, it wasn't important to them, it was just

friendship. That was very strange for me because a lot of people

wouldn't do that, that I had known at my other school. It was a great

feeling to have someone to stand there while someone was giving me crap

for whatever reason and I fought back and so would they. So I was being

supported instead of being thrown into the lion's den.

However, despite the fact that levels of homophobic violence at this

school were not as great, due to what Dave considers to be the

feminising influence of the girls in a co-educational context, he still

draws attention to the perpetration of such practices particularly by

the 'footballers':

54 Wayne: How did they give you crap?

55 Dave: It was again for my dancing. A lot of stuff like ballet boy, I

don't know, they were very unimaginative. Just a lot to do with being a

woman, being homosexual was a big thing again because of dancing. That

was the main problem!

56 Wayne: Who was doing that here?

57 Dave: It was a large group at that time in Year 9...I was condemned

by that big group of footballers who had characters like Carl Roberts,

Miles Teller, John Green and a few others.

58 Wayne: So is that the big group on the oval?

59 Dave: Yeah.

Here Dave highlights the role of normalising practices which involve

designating ballet or dance as a feminised practice. Once again the

policing of heterosexual masculinity is framed in terms of identifying

sex-inappropriate practices which form the basis of imputing

homosexuality. It is not so much dance itself that poses a problem, but

its association with the 'feminine' or being a woman which is effected

through a regime of practices that are imbricated in regulatory

technologies of the gendered self (see Nayak & Kehily, 1996). What is

emphasised by Dave and many of the boys interviewed is that the

'popular' group of 'footballers' perpetrated such sex-based harassment

which, I would want to argue, functions as another means by which the

latter are able to gain a particular 'cool' or tough status as

'masculine' subjects within an hierarchical peer group network of

social relations. This is important because a certain demeanour,

defined in these terms, becomes identifiable as enacting a particular

stylised form of heterosexual masculinity which is built around

rejecting imputed homosexuality (see Nayak & Kehily, 1996; Steinberg et

al, 1997).

Conclusion

On the basis of this data it would appear that homophobia needs to

addressed in schools, particularly in the interests of those students

who are subjected to such forms of harassment.This might best be

achieved, in the first instance, through initiating discussions that

revolve around the ways in which many boys learn to enact their

masculinities. This also relates to addressing the ways in which girls'

sexualities are policed and regulated in schools (see Lees, 1986;

1993). In fact, Foucault draws attention to the pivotal role that

sexuality plays in the way that we learn to monitor and regulate

ourselves according to specific norms for governing our conduct. In

short, he argues that sexuality has always been a means by which we

come to understand the 'truth about ourselves':

In fact the problem is this: how is it that in a society like ours,

sexuality is not simply a means of reproducing the species, the family,

and the individual? Not simply a means to obtain pleasure and

enjoyment? How has sexuality come to be considered the privileged place

where our deepest truth is read and expressed? For that is the

essential fact...the Western world has never ceased saying: "To know

who you are, know what your sexuality is." Sex has always been the

forum where both the future of our species and "truth" as human

subjects are decided. (Foucault, 1988: 111-112)

To frame sexuality in these terms is to draw attention to issues of

power and the way it operates as a mechanism for regulating our

subjectivities and maintaining narrow and restricted notions of

masculinity and femininity (see Renew, 1996; Boulden, 1996). The

interviews with Steve, James and Dave highlight the extent to which

sexuality is deployed in one particular school to normalise and police

a particular version of hegemonic masculinity. As illustrated, this has

particular consequences for those boys who are perceived to deviate

from the heterosexual norm (Epstein, 1994; 1997). These boys become

targets for homophobic harassment and, as Amanda Nickson stresses:

The bottom line is: schools have a duty of care to students. All

schools, and for all students. Therefore, it follows that all schools

should have policy and procedures which not only set out appropriate

responses to instances of homophobia, but which actively seek to create

an environment where homophobic attitudes are discouraged and all

students are encouraged, included and supported regardless of perceived

or real sexual orientation. (1996: 165).

It is within such a framework of duty of care and ethical

responsibility that:

• strategic attempts be made in schools to place homophobia on the

agenda so that sex based harassment can be understood and addressed

(see Blackmore et al. 1996).

• professional development be provided to staff in the first instance to

enable them to develop a greater understanding of the ways in which

sexuality is used to police sex/gender boundaries and the effects that

this has for particular groups and types of students (Epstein, 1994;

Ward, 1995; Butler, 1996).

• spaces in the curriculum be created for discussing issues of

masculinity as a threshold for addressing homosexuality and homophobias

in schools (see Martino & Mellor, 1995). This equally applies to

dealing with issues related to forms of sex based harassment affecting

girls in schools, particularly those students - both boys and girls -

identifying as gay (see Epstein, 1994).

• schools provide forums and information evenings for parents so that

they have the opportunity to participate in discussions and to develop

a better understanding of the issues involved in addressing homophobia

within a social justice and duty of care framework in schools (see

Becket et al, 1997; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1995; 1996; Martino, 1995;

1997; Boulden, 1996).

• attempts be made through professional development forums for

addressing issues of sexuality as human rights and social justice

issues.

• attempts be made to document and to undertake an audit of students'

experiences of sex-based harassment so that attention can be drawn to

the pervasive role of homophobia in the lives of adolescent boys and

girls in schools (see Butler, 1996).

• school counsellors, because of their key role in addressing student

welfare issues, become actively involved in addressing issues of

homophobia with both staff and students.

• schools provide clear guidelines for dealing with issues of

homosexuality which take into account the valuing of and respect for

the individual person.

• schools provide and access resources which help teachers to deal with

and to understand gender based violence and issues of sexuality (see

DEETYA, 1995; Renew, 1996; Laskey & Beavis, 1996).

• schools work actively to challenge narrow and restrictive definitions

of gender which are policed through homophobic practices.

The above are presented as targets for those working in schools and are

derived from the data which have been strategically deployed to draw

attention to the pervasive nature of homophobic practices in the

policing of sex/gender boundaries for adolescent boys in schools. In

light of the this research, it would appear that the confessional space

of the interview can be quite powerful in producing forms of knowledge

that can be deployed strategically to mobilise discourses around the

impact and effects of homophobic regimes of practice in schools. The

task that remains is for those working in schools to gain access to

this knowledge so that specific capacities and strategies for broaching

such issues with students can be placed on the agenda and dealt with at

a whole school level.

Note: I would like to thank Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli for her comments

on an earlier draft of this paper.

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