Hard Lines and Soft Scenes: Constituting Masculinities in the Prospectuses of all-Boys Elite Private Schools

Abstract

Over the last decade, education researchers have been concerned with the ‘impression management’ activities of schools in the current climate of school corporatisation. Among these activities is the dissemination of school prospectuses that, far from being merely arbitrary sources of information, are seen as strategic texts that communicate the ethos of educational providers to potential clientele. Through sociocultural, feminist and post-structuralist frames, we consider how the positioning of masculinities is utilised as a marketing technique in such texts and, in turn, how such texts are implicated in the discursive construction of idealised schooling subjectivities. We undertake a semiotic analysis of the prospectuses of six private boys schools in the Sydney region of New South Wales, Australia, considering how masculinities are represented within binaries that position older boys as hard, strong and capable, and younger boys as small, weak and vulnerable. We argue that schooling is depicted in these texts as providing the necessary training ground for boys making the transition from boyhood to manhood. We argue that these images of masculinity continue to be associated, either directly or indirectly, with narrow notions of social privilege.

The Hidden Internationalism of Elite English Schools

“…As McDonald et al (2010) have argued, 'schools draw on hegemonic discourses in broader cultural politics [and]…in turn, reproduce and reinforce the platforms and emphases of these discourses' (p.14). Websites and prospectuses are perhaps particularly important for private schools as they often rely on visual and ritual display as a base for their prestige and exclusivity (e.g., emphasising school architecture and landscapes) (Allan, 2010;Gottschall et al, 2010).…”

Starry Eyes and Subservient Selves: Portraits of ‘Well-Rounded’ Girlhood in the Prospectuses of All-Girl Elite Private Schools

“…In contrast to the elite boys' school prospectuses, where the focus is on hard male bodies caught in action (Gottschall et al, 2010), the girls' prospectuses focus instead on pretty, passive, smiling girls posing for the camera. In these images and the texts that accompany them, femininity is constructed as a wistfully anticipating, loving/lovely/lovable, and simultaneously pure and heterosexually attractive state of being.…”

“…So while the promotional materials of elite private boys schools construct community and society in terms of providing opportunities for boys to lead (Gottschall et al, 2010); on the other hand, it seems that '[t]he significance and purpose of cultivating leadership among young women is linked to their capacity to be good citizens' (Harris, 2004, p. 79).Thus, elite private girls schools encourage girls to serve the community through 'active social service' (Charles, 2008, p. 8), 'good deeds' and being 'ambassadresses' for global society (Harris, 2004, p. 79, in Charles, 2008, as well as 'forging harmonious intercultural connections' (Harris, 2004, p. 71, in Charles, 2008. Such positions reinforce gender stereotypes-particularly the feminisation of service or labour (Burman, 2005, p. 362;Gonick, 2006, p. 5)-and the restrictions associated with them.…”

Fuzzy books and sideways looks: discourses of schooling on Australian television advertisements

“…Despite the plethora of studies of the ways schooling and education are produced in the media, advertising -including television advertisinghas been significantly underexamined. Where discourses of schooling and education on advertising have been examined, studies have primarily focused upon university advertisements (Farber & Holm, 2005), government public awareness campaigns (S. and private school prospectuses (Gottschall, Wardman, Edgeworth, Hutchesson, & Saltmarsh, 2010;Symes, 1998;Wardman et al, 2010). From this literature, it can be seen that advertisements directly selling the educational experience frame schooling in an overtly positive light.…”