‘I can try it’: negotiating masculinity through football in the playground

Abstract

The research presented explores the negotiation of hegemonic masculinity through football in a group of school children between three and five years of age in a school in Spain. The article shows that in the construction of masculinity within the school, football plays an important role. In this sense, it shows how the playing of football created a double system of exclusion. On the one hand, girls were excluded from the football field and, on the other hand, some children looked for strategies to exclude younger school children. At the same time, a classification of the various masculinities was created based on the skills they had and their overall ability of the sport. However, through football some children also found a way to negotiate their masculinity. In line with this issue, the struggle of powers and tensions that football provoked among the peer group is shown. The data analysis has been conducted under a post-structuralist lens for an in-depth study of the process of exclusion, differentiation and surveillance through the sport.

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