Cruz, I; Poveda, D. y Morgade, M. (2020). Positioning gender in an experimental collaboration with secondary school students in Madrid. ETNIA-E: Cuadernos de Investigación Etnográfica sobre Infancia, Adolescencia y Educación del IMA/FMEE nº 17, 1-25.
This paper discusses gender performances in a collaborative experience organized with a group of adolescent students in a Madrid secondary school. We draw from a variety of ethnographic techniques and data-sources to understand the displayed identities and ways of talking about gender in a school workshop centered on exploring the meaning of gender and gender inequalities. We adapt strategies from positioning analysis to examine how gender discourses and ideologies emerge in (mostly male) adolescent’s identity narratives, the interactional order created during the workshop and in how adolescents react to societal sexism. The results show how adolescents are capable of engaging with gender within a collaborative setting but also confirm the pervasiveness of hegemonic views of masculinity and femininity in adolescents’ discourses. We discuss these findings in relation to further intervention efforts in school settings and the role of researchers’ own identity work in promoting changes in adolescent gender practices. Full text: (pdf)