Teaching boys and gender justice

Abstract

This paper explores issues in the teaching of boys within a gender just framework. It identifies the productive pedagogies model as an appropriate means by which the specifics of boys' education can be considered. It avoids essentialist accounts of boys' pedagogies to suggest that pedagogies directed towards boys have to foreground issues of gender justice and privilege. There is a recognition that schools do not meet the needs of some boys. However, there is also a recognition that schools do not meet the needs of many girls and that some boys are a problem for girls and teachers as well as each other. Hence, this paper suggests ways in which pedagogies directed towards the specifics of boys' education can improve the educational experiences of girls, boys and teachers. In the process it also notes some of the dangers of a take up of the productive pedagogies model with boys without a demonstrated commitment to gender justice.