'Boys own' stuff: masculinity and the management of further education

Author(s): Whitehead, S.

Journal/Book: Sociol Rev. 1998; 46: 108 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1JF, Oxon, England. Blackwell Publ Ltd. 436-457.

Abstract: The connections between men, masculinity and management remain understated if not largely concealed, despite a critical spotlight being increasingly cast on masculinity by many academic and other writers. In a similar vein, numerous commentators on organisation have charted the rise of new organisational forms and structures, and the management practices which flow from them. With few notable exceptions, however, these bodies of work deny or downplay the complex linkages and interconnections between masculinity and the activities of management. By drawing on the case of UK further education (FE), and more particularly, the management practices therein, an aim of this article is to draw attention to this inter-relationship of masculinities and men managers. In so doing, we suggest that the term 'masculine subject' best exemplifies those men, and women, who seek to invest their sense of being in masculinist discourses. The empirical basis is taken from research undertaken across a number of FE colleges wherein 24 men managers were interviewed as part of a larger project concerned with the management and regulation of the sector. In exposing the intensified and increasingly uncertain work conditions now typifying the new FE work culture, this article draws attention to practices of oppression and bullying by managers underplayed or overlooked by writers elsewhere.

Note: Article Kerfoot D, Univ Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, W Yorkshire, ENGLAND

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