| Summary: | This paper outlines interview based, qualitative research that was conducted with six
male youth who were previously students in my Social Studies 11 class. Within two separate,
semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to discuss student resistance to anti
oppressive pedagogy that focused on gender, and their understanding of masculinities. The
initial purpose of this research was to find a relationship, if any, between acts of student
resistance and the construction of masculinities. Participant perceptions of masculinities evolved
as the dominant theme within the interviews. These discussions revealed that student
understandings of masculinity were often entrenched in hegemonic language, yet contradictions
were exposed between their rote definitions and personal narratives. Further, the use of media as
a discourse became a venue for complicating essentialist understandings of masculinity, and for
exposing multiple, fluid, versions of masculinities. Within these discussions of multiplicity, race
and sexuality became two intersections of identity that took precedence. Also the intersection of
teacher identity and the reading of identity terms emerged as a salient interpretation for gender
discussions in the classroom. Throughout this write-up of the research are methodological
considerations surrounding power, the construction of masculinity and race, and the further
entrenching of heteronormativity, in the form of methodological interludes. Finally, within the
conclusion, I consider the implications for practice and future directions for research in
masculinities.
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