In One Ear and Out the Other: Unmasking Masculinities in the Caribbean Classroom

Derived from qualitative data collected for a research project based at theInstitute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies,Jamaica, this paper explores classroom gendered responses of High Schoolstudents in Jamaica, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The accountshows how teachers interpret gendered responses as confirmation of natural andnecessary differences between male and female pupils. It is these perceiveddifferences which they use to justify the case for single sex education,particularly for males. Conversely the paper argues that male gendered responsesare informed by cultural expectations which translate into pedagogicalrelationships. These expectations reflect a version of masculinity (emergingfrom the historical experiences of white patriarchal chattel slavery in the WestIndies) which equates education with the female side of a male/female dichotomy.The paper explores ways in which schools encourage this version of ‘masculinity’at the same time as rendering it educationally inappropriate. In doing so thepaper addresses issues which have been raised about male educational failure inrecent British research.