ABSTRACT

The past two decades has seen widespread academic and public concern about boys’ academic achievement and the emergence of discourses that identify girls as academic ‘winners’ in the primary classroom; however, this article aims to problematise these trends. Drawing on ethnographic research carried out in a primary school classroom in London, this article draws attention to ‘boysplaining,’ a set of behaviours carried out by certain boys which constituted a form of hegemonic masculinity in this classroom. Boysplaining, a younger version of mansplaining, manifested both verbally and physically, and appears to affect how girls navigate the classroom. This research indicates how boysplaining disadvantages girls, raising questions about the extent to which girls are ‘winning’ in primary school classrooms today. The article calls for further research on boysplaining in other classrooms, in particular to examine the academic, social and emotional consequences of these behaviours on girls and non-hegemonic boys.

摘要

在过去的 20 年里，学术界和公众普遍关注男孩的学业成就，并且出现了将女孩视为小学学业“赢家”的话语；然而，本文旨在解决这些趋势的问题。本文借鉴在伦敦小学教室进行的人种学研究，提请注意“男孩抱怨”，这是某些男孩在该教室中构成霸权男子气概的一系列行为。Boysplaining 是一种较年轻的 mansplaining，表现在语言和身体上，似乎会影响女孩在课堂上的表现。这项研究表明男孩抱怨女孩的劣势，引发了关于女孩在今天小学课堂上“获胜”的程度的问题。