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Boys' Selves: Identity and Anxiety in the Looking Glass of School Life by Michael C. Reichert & Peter Kuriloff — 2004In the last decade, boys' lives, and particularly their school achievement, have come under increasing scrutiny. While dominant discourses have stressed boys as victims, schools as failing boys, and an essentialist view that boys will be boys, few take account that boys develop their self-concepts in the looking glass of the variously gendered academic and social curricula of schools. Yet understanding how boys form their sense of self is crucial, as much research has shown that students' self-concepts have a strong relationship with their grades. This exploratory study attempts to address this need, finding that the addition of a measure of boys' social anxiety significantly enhanced the statistical explanation of self-concept. Follow-up interviews with 27 boys helped us to understand the nature of their social anxiety and its relationship to the power dynamics and traditions of the particular school we studied. We conclude by suggesting ways such schools may be able to help boys reduce their anxiety and enhance their senses of self.
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- Michael Reichert
Center for the Study of Boys' Lives
E-mail Author
MICHAEL REICHERT is a clinical and consulting psychologist who serves
as executive director for the Center for the Study of Boys’ Lives and project
director for Peaceful Posse, a youth violence initiative sponsored by
Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility. Recent publications
include chapters in Fine and Weis (2000) Construction Sites (‘‘Disturbances
of Difference’’) and Martino and Meyenn (2001) What About the Boys?
(‘‘Rethinking Boys’ Lives’’).
- Peter Kuriloff
University of Pennsylvania
E-mail Author
PETER KURILOFF is a counseling psychologist and a professor in the
Educational Leadership Division of the University of Pennsylvania’s
Graduate School of Education. He is research director of the Center for
the Study of Boys’ Lives. Recent publications include (with McGrath)
‘‘Knocking the Girls off the Basketball Court,’’ School Community Journal,
Fall/Winter 1999, as well as (with Reichert) ‘‘Boys of Class, Boys of Color,’’
Journal of Social Issues, 59(4), 2003.
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