The issue of emotions in school leadership is one that has received increasing attention in recent years. In this paper we present a case study of the emotional demands upon one principal as she undertakes a programme of school reform. This case study works against the common discourse of "emotional maturity" inherent in an individual…

This article focuses on the continuing impact of recuperative masculinity politics in the schooling of economically advantaged boys (elite and middle class); yet, it also indicates resistance to this politics. An understanding that the gender order is unstable and that variants of hegemonic masculinity continue to morph in the context of…

This article rejects the notion that schools have become excessively feminised spaces that are failing to adequately provide for the educational needs of boys. This construction of schools as feminised has provided the impetus for the development of what have become known as "boy-friendly" pedagogies. Unfortunately such pedagogies work…

Recognising that there is now a globalised educational discourse about "failing boys" circulating in the privileged nations of the global north, this article provides a comparative perspective on educational policy responses to the "boy turn" in Australia and Iceland. Specificities of the responses to the boy turn in the two…

Music is central to the lives of most high-school age boys. However, music education is a marginalised area of the school curriculum, decreasing in popularity as students approach senior school and succumb to pressures to choose subjects perceived to be more useful in the "real world". While this process is common for both boys and girls, the…

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…