Emerging masculinities: ways of exploring dominant discourses within early primary peer groups

This paper details components of research in progress, highlighting the importance of examining the collective dimension of masculinities in the early primary years of schooling as well as investigating the potential of innovative approaches to exploring young children's collective understandings of themselves and their gender. This paper was written prior to the data collection phase of the research with the intention of illuminating different ways through which teachers and researchers may analyse young children's peer groups. More specifically, the paper proposes ways of exploring the nature and dynamics of the peer group and the way these dynamics interact to form the dominant discourses of masculinity which shape and regulate boys' behaviour and restrain their perceptions of, and interactions with, 'others'.