JPS 2003 – Chicago – 33rd Annual Meeting of The Jean Piaget Society

---- SYMPOSIUM ----

Developing a (Male) Sense of a (Heterosexual) Self:

Positioning Strategies in 10-, 12-, and 14-Year-Olds on the Topic of Girls and Sexuality

SYMPOSIUM Organizer:  Michael Bamberg

SYMPOSIUM ABSTRACT: The four symposium presentations are addressing identity formation processes ‘in transition’ from childhood to adolescence. All presentations start from the assumption that ‘identity’ (better: ‘identities’) are understood as discursive achievements, i.e., as locally situated and interactively accomplished. Consequently, the analyses will focus on how participants in their interactions (with one another) discursively position their ‘selves’ by working up topics such as ‘girls’ and ‘sexuality’ and in playful confrontations with each other (and an adult moderator). The data discussed in the presentations stem from the same cross-sectional (and longitudinal) project on adolescent (male) identity formation processes in 10-, 12-, and 14-year old boys, who (in the segments presented for analysis) discuss as topics ‘girls’ (‘girlfriends’) and ‘sexuality’.

In order to be able to extrapolate the differences in the positioning repertoires across the three age cohorts that are assumed to represent developmental differences, the theoretical framework of the project will be briefly introduced followed by two presentations of interactions of a 10-year-old group, one of a 12-year-old, and one of a 14-year-old group. The presenters will show video-clips and present the analyses of the positioning repertoires with detailed transcripts of the segments. A brief summary section will lead toward an audience discussion by opening up and reorienting toward the theoretical framework within which identity and self are analyzed. 

 Although the symposium is not having PLAY as its central theme, the presentations nevertheless will document that identities in the conversational data presented in the four talks are drawn up in the form of ‘play-like’ identity confrontations, offered as exploratory projects, testing out interactively which position is acceptable and which one isn’t, ready to withdraw or alter whatever has been offered. -- We hope with this symposium to contribute methodologically as well as theoretically to a central theme of developmental theorizing, i.e., the social-interactive and micro-genetic constitution of a sense of self and identity.

Project: longitudinal + cross-sectional investigation of Identity Formation Processes in 10-14-year-old males

• cross-sectional: 10-, 12-, and 14-year olds (longitudinally at these points)
• writing samples; peer interactions (without adult interference); one-on-one interviews; focus group discussions
• topics oriented to: (i) friends + friendship, (ii) girls/sexuality, (iii) emotions + body, (iv) adults + future orientation (fatherhood)

Theoretical Assumptions: Identities as ‘locally’ accomplished in interactions (often in the form of ‘identity confrontations’)

• as site where claims are made – identity positions are drawn up
• as site for approaching the genesis of participants’ positions
• focus on the ‘process’ of “doing adolescence” and “doing masculinity” (as achievements and accomplishments)
• developmentally between the interactants (less so between age-groups) <microgenetically>

Material: short excerpts of interactional data (in which identity/position claims are made/negotiated)

Topics: selected for this symposium are short segments about ‘girls’ and ‘gays’ (from focus group interactions)

Analytic Focus: distinct discursive repertoires (=the fabric of these ‘repertoires’) – used for identity claims/positions (as ‘adolescent’ and as ‘male’)

---positions drawn up vis-à-vis topics of girls + gays

---positions vis-à-vis peers (and moderator)

---positions vis-à-vis privileged (dominant) discourses

Mariana Barcinski

“We Shoved like Three Girls at a Time”: Hegemonic and Weak Masculinities in 10-Year-Olds

The two segments that I singled out for analysis are presenting two very different identity projections. In the first segment, Victor positions himself as strong and powerful. He does it by presenting girls as weak and easy to manipulate (at least physically). In the second segment, he presents himself in the undergoer position, in which he has to hide from females.

Now, this may be nothing new. In one moment we present ourselves in one way, and 10 minutes later in another way. So, the purpose of my presentation in this symposium is not so much to highlight and extrapolate these two different kinds of ‘masculinity positions’, but rather to open up (a) how we methodologically approach talk-in-interaction as data, and (b) point in the direction of what this kind of data analysis can teach us with regard to identity formation processes in childhood and adolescence.

Since Erikson’s original work, the notion of identity has been associated to the subjective sense of oneself as unique and individual. Whether it is present at birth or constructed in the process of child development, within the Eriksonian paradigm, it provides the person with a subjective sense of wholeness and sameness. In our work we analyze the process of identity formation from an alternative perspective, based on the interactional and discursive roots within which self and identity are continuously constructed and reconstructed.

Next I will work through the first segment in order to identify more clearly how a 10-year-old positions himself vis-à-vis girls and draws up a presentation of himself in a particular ‘gendered’ way. Victor talks about taking on three girls at the same time and being able to pick Lisa up on a pinky. The relevant lines in the transcript are in bold

First segment: “(…) and we shoved like three girls at a time”

  In this brief segment, Victor starts his first turn using the we in subject position and choosing the frame of “a war” within which we in our roles and actions come to existence. One group is given one territory, the other another one (‘islands of ice’).  In line 3d the we is subtly re-grouped: it now is a group of boys who <quote> ‘had to destroy’ the territory of another group. Of interest thus far is that we, by the intrinsic force of the war frame are defined legitimately as aggressors, and not as defenders, which could have been a possibility. Consequently, the description of our actions resulting from this frame focuses on us as agents in our aims to destroy. Thus, the position that Victor as the narrator draws up for Victor (and his buddies) in the war-game is given to them; it is not due to their own choice; they are not responsible for it, nor are they responsible for their actions (“we had to destroy”…“so what we did was”…“and we shoved like three girls at a time…”). All these actions “fall into their place”, so to speak, due to the rhetoric construction of the frame and its constituents.

The fact that the two territories are constructed along gendered lines gives Victor’s account a new orientation. In line 3d he emphasizes the boundary separating the two groups: and in his group just boys are allowed (‘with no girls on it’). Their island becomes explicitly stated as ‘male territory’. In lines 3f and 3g he specifies the physical actions that result from the depicted frame to ‘destroy’ their territory: shoving them (i.e., girls) into the snow; the image of this action is performed by the speaker so as to give it a more realistic presentation, bringing the audience closer into it. The physical strength of boys is portrayed in an exaggerated and even unrealistic way in line (3j): ‘and we shoved like three girls at a time’. Victor, the speaker, presents a Victor in the story as someone who can take on three opponents (here girls) and conquer them simultaneously. In his last line (3k), Victor generalizes the opponents’ weakness, arguing that ‘you’, i.e., any other male kid, can pick them up ‘with a pinky’ and do with them at your command.

The way Victor presents male and female characters in his presentation of the sequence of events resembles a very typical portrayal of men vis-à-vis women as strong, as macho and hegemonic versus subjugated, weak, and enslaved. Victor in his presentation of himself as a story character creates and aligns himself with a discourse that positions males in opposition to females, defining the male as agentive and legitimately placing women in “their” subjugate place.

I will turn now to the analysis of the second segment. Again we have the same boys, and again it is Victor who accounts for an event that was back when he was in preschool and it involves a girl named Ellen James.

Second segment: “(she) used to call me her little honey, for some strange reasons”

In the first turn in lines (a-r), Victor gives an account of what happened between him and another character when they were in preschool, i.e., about five years back from the time this was told. Just as in the first segment, he appropriates a particular frame within which the positions of the actors are ascribed by a play routine. However, in contrast to the war frame in the first segment, he develops the hide-and-seek-play frame within which the other character is given the agentive position of attempting to seek and find him (Ellen is marked several times in syntactic subject position as agent), and he is given the position of the one who goes into hiding, to avoid being found.

This account in the form of a story is introduced by a two-liner (a and b) serving the function of a preface, in which the same other is described as calling him names (“my little honey”)- and the speaker’s evaluative orientation is: “for some strange reason”. Together with the preface, the fact that the other is a girl of the same age as Victor, gives this account of a mundane hide-and-seek frame a different and potentially contradictory flavor. On one hand Victor can be heard by his audience as positioning himself as someone who was constantly approached and pursued by girls already at a young age. On the other hand, he can be heard as a weakling who has to go into hiding from girls. This last possibility is of course far from, if not contradicting, the ‘macho man’ image.

In his account Victor presents himself as the weaker character, subjected to the will of Ellen, something that carries the potential to be extended to girls or females in general. In lines (n to o), he displays both verbally (“and then I just sit there going oughhh”) and non-verbally (‘ducking down, shaking hands’) how Ellen used to scare him. And in the subsequent lines (q to r), he seems to justify to the audience his passiveness, appealing to Ellen as a tall person (‘she was tall when she was in preschool’). -- As if he had to explain why he was so scared of a girl, he continued to argue for Ellen’s height, in spite of being challenged by all others. In that moment Victor is attempting to get the audience’s complicity to his motives, leading us as analysts to the assumption that he is engaging in ‘doing repair-work’, that is, fending against the possible interpretation as ‘weakling’. When his audience continues to refuse his ‘excuses’ in their subsequent turns (‘she’s shorter than me’), Victor shifts the topic to a new discursive territory where he attempts to re-establish himself as expert, by claiming in turn 11: ‘I know one girl who is taller than all of you’.

In terms of gendered identity, Victor draws up a position that is definitely different from a typical hegemonic type of masculinity. While doing this he is constantly testing the audience’s responses, shaping and reshaping his account accordingly. In spite of the fact that his storied account has something of an ‘accidental’ flavor, as can be seen in his attempts to repair his masculine image, he nevertheless constructs a sense of self as potentially agentless, weak, and vulnerable.  

To summarize, in the two excerpts, the same speaker/narrator positions girls in two distinct ways: as passive undergoers and as agentive actors, resulting in two distinct representations of himself as ‘male’. In the first excerpt showing clear signs of a macho-type of masculinity; in the second, presenting himself as potentially vulnerable and subjected to female ‘power’.

This is not the place we can follow this discussion further, but I would simply like to point to the existence of these two distinct ‘discursive repertoires’ and the ability to discursively create them or “engage in them”. These two ‘repertoires’ are not the exclusive characteristics for 10-year-olds’ identity projections. Actually, we believe that they are two more basic ways of discriminating a sense of self vis-à-vis ‘the other’ and to engage in ‘identity confrontations’. In a similar way, these repertoires can also be appropriated to present one’s identity vis-à-vis others in terms of race, ethnicity, or age. So they are not the only repertoires for discriminating between different types of masculinity in youth. 

Caitlin Morey

“You Always Hung Around that Fruit-Punch-Girl”  – Status versus Vulnerability in ‘Having a Girlfriend’ in 10-Year-old Boys

In this part I will work through the two interaction segments of the 10-year-olds.  The transcripts can be found on the attachment under II-A (“You Always Hung Around that Fruit-Punch-Girl!”) and II-B (“You Never Had a Girlfriend!”). Segment II-A consists of an interchange between the five participants in which Victor insinuates that Stanton likes a girl (line 7). When Stanton admits to this (line 14), and subsequently (in lines 23, 33, and 35) reveals the names of other girls he likes, the others, in particular Victor, derange what could be heard as Stanton’s attempt of boasting, by ‘down-grading’ and deriding the girls he mentioned. What I will try to document and work up with this segment are the particular strategic means employed (in particular by Victor) by use of which he targets the girls whom Stanton claims to like.  He targets these girls in order to target Stanton, and he does this in order to move himself into a ‘masculinity position’ that he sets up as contrasting with Stanton’s.  In Segment II-B, Victor, in line 9, openly challenges Stanton’s claims of being “girl-friend-experienced”; again, as I will try to argue, to position himself in sharp contrast to a position that Victor ascribes to Stanton.  Subsequently, both of them seem to work out some kind of compromise that gives evidence to our assumption that these claims are temporary, fleeting and open to negotiation.

Excerpt II-A: “You Always Hung Around that Fruit-Punch-Girl”

In turn 7 of excerpt A, Victor himself answers the question he had rhetorically posed in turn 3, where he implied that basically no one ever liked Kimberly Spears except Stanton, as he makes explicit now in turn 7. The implication of the way these lines are delivered is that only pariahs from their consensually accepted peer group do.  The challenge that is baited is whether Stanton is a member of this category.  As t eh dialogue continues, Stanton keeps quiet while the others continue gossiping about who likes whom.  In turn 14, ‘giving in’ to Victor’s suggestion with an utterance initial  “fine”, Stanton places himself into the membership category recommended by Victor, while at the same time, hedging his liking-relationship to the girl in question, which makes him a “kind-of-member”. It seems as if he was anticipating the negative reactions that would follow and tried to avoid or at least soften them.  Wallie and Victor’s response, in turns 15 and 16, was reproachful as they pointed at him in ridicule. With turn 16, Victor derides the girl for having fruit punch stains around her mouth. Stanton hears this as an attack on himself and his status, as he consequentially attempts to defend this girl in turn 17 by changing Victor’s charge from ‘fruit punch around her mouth’ to only ‘chapped lips.’  This is assuming chapped lips are more acceptable and understandable than fruit punch stains. Punch stains around the mouth have a strong connotation of immaturity and child-likeness and it characterizes someone who can’t drink or clean-up properly and is, therefore, unworthy of interaction with those who are ascribed as mature. Again, when Victor further attempts to downgrade this girl in turn 18, Stanton corrects Victor in turn 19, by downplaying the affected area around her mouth. Victor launches another attempt to what we called, for lack of a better term, “yakkify” Kimberly by characterizing her in turn 21 as slurping noisily, again, in a sense, infantilizing her.

In spite of the fact that Stanton has had to defend Kimberly in order to fend for his own status, he reveals in turn 23 that there are two more girls he used to like. Stanton at first tries to conceal the identity of these girls by remaining ambiguous as if he is trying to dodge further “yakkifikation” endeavors by his peers. He lets the others engage in wild guessing games, until he finally reveals the girls identities, Stephanie and Shannon, in turns 33 and 36, of which are mutually recognized, and he earns an even worse rating from Victor’s response in turn 37 of: “Ew, you liked Shannon? She was so ugly. I haaate her”.  Again, Victor employs the same rhetoric means: he comments on her looks and gives his general and negative evaluation of her in order to target Stanton as someone of low enough ‘status’ to like girls like her. Again, interpreted as a personal insult, Stanton, in turns 38 and 40, tries to preserve his own image by partly agreeing with Victor, while promoting a somewhat less extreme representation of his crush as someone who is annoying and possibly a tattletale, but certainly not someone to be hated.

To summarize, it seems as if Stanton is baited with a challenge by Victor for his ‘liking a girl,’ and after a brief hesitation he concedes to that challenge, becomes vulnerable, and earns his peers’ mockery. Thereafter, Stanton plants more of the same hints of his having more romantic crushes.  He actually refers to them in turn 23 as “people”, not ‘girls,’ continually remaining vague for the purpose of preempting the mockery of which Victor delivers succinctly. Thus, Victor, who hears Stanton’s discourse as flaunting a heterosexual self that is “active” and “experienced,” for the ears of a ten-year-old, he attempts to dismantle this presentation of male self. The means created to accomplish this are the verbal “yakkifications” of the discussed ‘objects of desire,’ in this case, the afore-mentioned girls.  This not only brings down the relationship between Stanton and his crushes, but in the same move, Stanton’s displayed sense of maleness. The intended outcome of this strategy, it can be assumed, is an emerging sense of superior masculinity on Victor’s part. His male identity display supersedes Stanton’s male identity, and in a way replaces it. Thus, it may not be the case that boys at a certain age (nor girls) really feel disgust vis-à-vis members of the other gender; rather, as here in this example, we see it employed as a rhetoric strategy that, so-to-speak, “ ‘makes’ or produces masculinity”.  

Excerpt II-B:  “You Never Had a Girl-Friend”

In this segment, Victor, in turn 9, seemingly out of the blue, but in line with our analysis of excerpt A, launches an attack on Stanton’s claim of having a girlfriend.  He is baiting him again in what seems to be an attempt of downgrading Stanton’s relative status of being ‘girl-experienced’.  Using the third-person grammatical positioning device, here in line 9, Victor is able to make his baited challenge less direct; avoiding an upfront confrontation, with the effect of positioning himself as less hostile toward Stanton while still contesting his status of masculinity.  This more subtle technique is interestingly more prevalent in older age groups. In turn 10, Stanton refutes this challenge, and when pressed by Victor for details, in turn 11, names ‘Katie’ as his crush. Bizarrely (turn 12). Victor disagrees, in turn 13, as if he is more in the know about Stanton’s girlfriends than Stanton himself, and elaborates with other references to solidify his understanding of the past state of affairs as more factual. Even more bizarrely, Stanton agrees to Victor’s elaborations of having seen him with two girls at the movies, and takes advantage of the situation by positioning himself in a way that allows him to flaunt more of his male status by implying that one of the girls was “following his back”; another infantile association. Victor, in turn 15, agrees, but evaluates this whole incident as “funny”, if not “hilarious;” giving lukewarm support for Stanton’s masculinity position.

In sum, Victor drops his original challenge and joins Stanton in the co-construction of their relative mature masculinity in contrast to this girl. Along the same lines as in excerpt A, Victor attempts to downplay Stanton’s “girl-experience” by characterizing the whole incident as humorous.  The appropriation and derision of the girl, Mary, serves the functional purpose within the dialogue to relationally gain status for the boys.  The ardent attack and defense of Stanton’s status of “having a girlfriend” and thus, appearing “girl-experienced,” is indicative of the discursive strategies by use of which boys in this age group make sense of this particular aspect of their masculinity. The competing discourses between Victor and Stanton position Victor as being too mature for the girls Stanton professes to liking as Stanton tries to position himself as a heterosexual, girl-experienced male who can also be mature.

The two segments chosen for analysis in our opinion document very nicely two moderate though rather different ‘identity confrontations.’  Both segments were couched in a form of teasing or challenging of each other, moving in and out of more or less cooperative forms of interaction. Although Stanton is clearly more the victim in these two excerpts, both boys seem to engage in a rather playful and co-operative, though nevertheless competitive, negotiation of their male identities. While this kind of social tissue of peer identity negotiations does not seem to change much in our three age groups, the strategies by which these negotiations and identity confrontations are negotiated DO change. Stanton’s flaunting of heterosexuality and Victor’s “yakkification” attempts are more typical of 10-year-old resources.

Jacob Farwell

“Go Ahead, Take a Punch at Me” – Adult Status Orientations in ‘Having a Girlfriend’ in 12-Year-Olds

 The two segments discussed in this section segments address the same issue, namely “having a girlfriend”.  However, the type of strategies employed here are used in the boys’ attempt to come across as male and heterosexual.  In the first segment (entitled III-A), it is Ted in turn 4, who reports that he went swimming at his girlfriend’s house last weekend. As if he expects his buddies to jump at him, Ted fends off his potential assailants - even before they have the opportunity to do so. In other words, he successfully preempts them.

Then, in Excerpt III-B (“I can’t say that, I am taken” - below), the conversation continues on the topic of girls; and when asked to engage in some gossiping on another girl’s looks, Ted argues that he can’t comment on her attractiveness, because he “is taken”.  What is of relevance for us here with both excerpts, is how Ted positions himself vis-à-vis girls. Again, we will have a closer look after watching the excerpts, how they, in their talk about girls, position themselves vis-à-vis the other participants as male and as heterosexual.

Excerpt III-A:  “Yeah fine, go ahead.”

In this segment, Ted shares that he went swimming with his girlfriend at her grandmother’s house. In choosing to share this activity in this group setting, Ted advertises a sense of his own self as the male part of a heterosexual relationship. In line 4a, we saw him briefly pausing with a slight smile, withholding what he and his girlfriend actually did -- as if he was waiting for, or even inviting, a comment from the participants. This technique of withholding information you were asked for builds up a sense of anticipation, drawing your listeners’ attention.  Note that he could have said ‘I went SWIMMING at my girlfriend’s house’, or he just could have said that he went SWIMMING; but this would have pointed his audience in a different direction. Note also that he avoids saying ‘and WE went swimming’ – he says ‘and I went swimming’, excluding his girlfriend from this activity. In other words, he has decided to bring in SOME aspects of his relationship with this female other, and conceal other aspects. In line c and d he more overtly addresses how he would like to be heard by his peers (and the adult moderator): ‘I do have a girlfriend, yes; and if you want to make fun of me for this, please go ahead; I am used to this, and it doesn’t do any harm to me’. And in conveying something along these lines, he uses the topic of ‘girls’ (or better: ‘girlfriends’) as a rhetorical means to position himself as different from the others.  In other words, he positions himself as flaunting his heterosexual identity.

Excerpt III-B: “I can’t say that, I’m taken”

  In this excerpt the participants are discussing a girl of Asian ethnic background, for whom all boys express unanimous dislike, including Ted in turn 1.With turns 4 and 8 Ted modifies his position somewhat, since he claims to be walking with her home every day. When the moderator asks whether Ted finds her attractive, he first (in turn 11) displays a non-understanding, and then (in turn 13) dodges the question: He presents himself as not ABLE to answer this question; and he justifies his inability by appeal to his heterosexual engagement that had surfaced earlier in the segment we just discussed.

The passive construction “I am taken” implicates an unnamed female as agent of the “taking action”, and calls up the frame of a long-standing, monogamous relationship in which his sexuality is constrained to one partner only – maybe for life. Again, note that he could have said that he had chosen his partner, placing himself more as an agent in this relationship; or he could have simply said that he already IS in a relationship; but he decided to flaunt his heterosexuality, here by casting himself as the henpecked male who submits to the will of his domineering female partner. It is as if Ted in his response to the moderator (with his peers as overhearing audience) adopts a rhetoric stance that resembles a very traditional, adult husband-type of discourse, in stark contrast to the - more immature and juvenile – hegemonic discourse of ‘man as predator’, being out ‘on the hunt’.

It is important to realize that there seems to be a playful undertone in Tom’s alignment with this type of adult discourse of maturity. His adoption of an adult-like register naturally runs counter to the fact that he is 12-years old, and the self presentation of a 12-year old as being taken for the rest of his life, may come across as odd – or, as an alternative, it is meant as a way to mock or even subvert this kind of adult-like, though in my opinion very conservative, standard. This second interpretation can be seen as substantiated by what happens next:  First, in turn 14 Jason backs up Ted’s claim by stating something that everyone already knows. By re-stating the obvious, coupled with a smiling face, directed at the moderator, John does not draw up a position of a counter identity to Ted by downgrading his flaunting. Rather, he aligns himself with Ted. When the moderator reformulates his question in turn 15 to enable Tom to take a stance, Nick, in turn16, also aligns himself with Ted and playfully seems to assist in protecting his non-commitment vis-à-vis the girl in question and non-compliance with the moderator’s agenda. Ted, in turn 17, gratefully takes up on the support from his peers, forcing the moderator to yet another reformulation of his original question.

To summarize what is happening in these two segments in terms of the positioning strategies and identity constructions in these 12-year-olds, segment III-A presents Ted as flaunting his male sexuality. However, here is Ted himself, who confronts his own identity claim the way typically the ten-year-olds confront each other. In segment III-B, when Ted is flaunting again, he accomplishes his identity construction by use of a discursive strategy that presents his male sense of self with a bit of irony. And when supported by his peers, it becomes evident that the 12-year-olds are projecting a position that on one hand is borrowing from adult repertoires, but on the other hand is set up against typical (or maybe ‘stereotypical’) adult repertoires; as if the twelve year-old boys are attempting to develop identity projects that are distinct from – and possibly even in contrast to adult identity positions.  But what clearly distinguishes these kinds of positioning strategies from the ones we’ve seen in younger children, is less directness, or less boldness, by which the identity confrontations are carried out and negotiated. The 12-year-olds seem to be more versed in anticipating potential confrontations and more playful with a certain amount of ambiguity or tentativeness and ‘hypotheticality’ in their identity claims.

Steven Power

“I think this conversation bothers a few kids in this room” – Sexuality and Positioning in 14-year-old boys

In the next three excerpts from the discussions between five 14-year-old boys the topic has shifted from girls and girlfriends to gays. The focus in these excerpts is on James and to a lesser degree on Ed, who both engage in brief exchanges of identity confrontations: Ed presents himself as willing to display some forms of prejudice and some consideration of being phobic, i.e., as essentially open to self-criticism; James presents a self that is less ambiguous, more rational, more liberal, and more in control. So what we have here are two identity positions; one as saying: Look, we all are susceptible to prejudice and homophobia; the as other saying: Not me; maybe you, but I’m above all this.   Both strategies resemble the baiting and teasing routines we already saw in the 10- and 12-year olds, but at the same time, they differ by appropriating distinctly reflective and adult-like discursive devices. In excerpts A and B, you will see James openly challenging his interlocutors as homophobic and hung-up; but you will also see that all this is done in a teasing mode.  James successfully presents himself as unaffected and in control and elevates himself into the expert on issues of gay sexuality. In excerpt C, we follow James more closely in how he manages this topic to also display and safeguard his own sexuality as hetero. In our analysis we are less interested in what they say or think about homosexuals, but how they employ this topic to present themselves in terms of their own sexual identities.

Excerpt -A: “His aunts and my uncles are gay”

  The confrontation of the two identity positions starts with James’ challenge in turn (5), where he charges Ed as homophobic. Ed, in turn (7) attempts to deflect (“aren’t we all”), but is set straight by all of his interlocutors who are shaking their heads, explicitly denying the possibility to be susceptible to any form of homophobia. James, with turn (13), attempts to corroborate his and his buddies’ claim by pointing up that Josh’s aunts are gay. Ed’s attempt to censor James (in lines14 and 16) for revealing this information is followed by James’ attempt to push the issue further: James claims for Josh, that Josh does not mind (turn15), and he himself also has gay relatives (turn 17). Thus, what starts out as drawing up different stances toward homophobia in general (with Ed taking a more open but vulnerable position that considers a certain susceptibility, and the others drawing up a position of rationality and distance), turns into an altercation between James and the others, with James as able and willing to openly discuss matters of homophobia, revealing secrets about others’ sexual orientations, implying that he is knowledgeable and not hung up talking about these matters pub- or semi-publicly. In sum, Ed, who might be heard with turn (7) as more authentic and possibly more credible, admitting to be affected by a prejudice we all share, is juxtaposed by James as more rational and less hung-up in comparison to the others: James makes no secret of what could be considered private issues and displays a self being unaffected by prejudice and phobia.

Next, in excerpt B James continues to challenge his peers as being bothered by the topic of the conversation, as if they all are pretending to be open and liberal vis-à-vis gays:

 Excerpt -B: “This conversation bothers a few kids in this room”

  In the first four turns of excerpt B George, Ed, and Josh ponder further over their positions vis-à-vis gays, again with Ed’s apparent willingness (in turn 4) – similar as in excerpt A – to display a certain amount of ambiguity and uncertainty. James, in turn (5), removes himself from this level of pondering establishing a meta-pragmatic position on the participants’ interactive engagement: He sums up that all this has been uneasy and awkward – but excludes himself, leaving open who exactly is targeted by his challenge: James, for a second, slips into the moderator role, attempting to regulate the flow of the conversation. Josh, in turn (6), returns this challenge, requesting James to be specific, which could be heard as: ‘But you, James, you brought this up, so you’re implicating yourself’.  James returns this possible self-implication by targeting explicitly Josh, and when asked to explicate (“why me”?), he withdraws (“I don’t know”).  Again, what we find in this excerpt parallels what we already saw in excerpt A: James moves himself into a position from where he can look down on others, pondering with the issues of homosexuality and homophobia. Positioning himself over and above of what his peers are trying to accomplish, he elevates himself into the ultimate expert on issues of gay sexuality. At the same time, he tops off and supercedes Ed’s display of what could be heard as a potentially open and more ‘authentic attitude’ and counter-presents himself as open, liberal, as willing and able to address issues that are taboo and potential sources for prejudice and stereotyping to others.

Turning next to the last excerpt, where James in turn (9) himself is challenged on his expertise in ‘gay matters’ and in turn (15) gives an account of how he knows somebody who knows – so that he can come across as in secure distance with regard to his own heterosexuality.

Excerpt -C: “I know a few of them – I don’t know them, but I’ve seen them”

  In excerpt C James offers another display of his knowledge and expertise in gay matters: In turn (6) he effectively outmaneuvers Ed, who ‘only’ knows of one gay boy at their school, by knowing a few, and when Ed (in turn 7) challenges James on his expert position, James in turn (15) launches into a mini-narrative in order to account and justify his expertise, as he states in line f: that’s why I know. Here, he carefully manages his position of proximity and alignment on one hand, and safe distance on the other, by authoring his informant not only as nice and honest, but also as female. His source is rhetorically worked up as reliable, he himself cannot be held accountable for any of this information, and any interpretation of him in close proximity or alignment with gay others is successfully blocked. His self-correction in turn (6) - not really knowing them, but only able to recognize them when he sees them - effectively draws up the same kind of careful and balanced position as a non-committed, neutral, but liberal and open citizen, one who can converse about these matters in a rational and correct way. It is interesting to see how this positioning strategy nevertheless results in something that is in line with the stereotypical position of gays as not associating with ‘other boys’. 

To summarize, what we have here in the three excerpts from discussions between the 14-year-olds are at least two differing positioning strategies vis-à-vis gay sexuality; one, displayed in Ed’s attempts to use this topic to voice ambivalence and question one’s individual stance; the other, more dominant strategy in these three segments, displayed in James’ more detached and controlled rationality, protecting a secure vantage point as the source for socially correct judgments.  Equally, or possibly more important, these five 14-year-olds (and the moderator!) are co-constructing these topics and their positioning strategies vis-à-vis these topics, i.e., the participants position themselves vis-à-vis one another, where they test out their positions, where they are contested, and where they potentially alter them. It is at this level, where what is said about others – as in our four papers about girls and homosexuals, becomes functional in terms of how the 14-year-olds are heard and hearing each other as male and heterosexual – or, in other words, it is here where they engage in drawing up their positions as males - and more specifically, as heterosexual males.

Let me conclude with a brief attempt to delineate the strategies used by the 14-year-olds from those of the younger boys: What we see in the 14-year-olds are far more sophisticated discursive means to engage in the same kinds of baiting and teasing of each other and in engaging in friendship or intimacy-building work. Their identity confrontations remain woven around what becomes oriented to as potentially vulnerable territory; but how they guard against criticism becomes more and more sophisticated. Playing with ambiguity and hypotheticality, deflecting way in advance from becoming the target, and guarding against being viewed as uncool by building into one’s self presentation a certain amount of deniability, are the building blocks in the formation of male adolescent identities, and it is these building blocks that we have targeted in our four papers as changing over time.

Some preliminary conclusions

DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

Although it was the aim with this symposium to explicitly target ‘age differences’ (i.e., differences in the ‘discursive repertoires’ between the three different age groups of 10-, 12-, and 14-year-old males), it should be noted that this per se does NOT turn the symposium (automatically) into a developmental contribution. As I tried to point out and make explicit, differences (and ‘sameness’) are first of all in the eye of the beholder (see Bamberg, 2000, p. 763). It nevertheless strikes us to be worth to orient our audience to the ways different age groups manage their identities in situations in which identity confrontations are at stake.

However, it should be noted that we see our symposium contributing to developmental theorizing in a different and more fundamental way. Our focus on the interactive process of meaning construction is intrinsically developmental since it targets the migrogenetic construction of communicative practice as the site where identities are tested out, potentially contested, and <potentially> altered. In our attempt to describe in detail the fabric of how identities are put together (‘occasioned’), and how interactants co-operate with and simultaneously confront and challenge each other in these processes, we hope to contribute to a change in orientation of what it means to do ‘developmental inquiry’ – challenging the common assumption that work on children (or adolescents) is automatically ‘developmental’, but also questioning the equally common assumption that a focus on age differences constitutes <automatically> developmentally interesting phenomena.

AGE DIFFERENCES

As one strategic means to display a particular aspect of masculine identity we identified and tried to describe in more detail the rhetoric means to ‘yakkify’ somebody’s crush in the 10-year-olds’ repertoires. The way these kinds of means are typically employed in the 10-year-olds identity confrontations are more direct and less tentative and subtle than in the older age groups. The discursive means we were able to identify in the 12-year-olds, strategically preempt and undercut such direct and bold confrontations. Evading the possibility of becoming the target of derision with conversational moves that are more indirect and tentative indicates an orientation toward more adult-like positions. The way the 14-year-olds strategically confronted each other, in spite of the fact that they often were extremely direct, nevertheless support this general trend toward an employment of strategic means that are more subtle and sophisticated. Play with ambiguity and hypotheticality become more pervasive and become routines in which any commitment becomes more tentative and provisional.

So what changes across the age-range under consideration is not the teasing or the directness of being confrontative, but the interior fabric by which these confrontations are ‘carried out’. It is our aim with more data analyses to contribute to a finer description and better understanding of this ‘interior fabric’. Having shown that younger boys’ ways to rhetorically characterize girls as ‘yak’ may be more of a discursive strategy to elevate one’s own male self vis-à-vis another male than an expression of the emotion of ‘disgust’, and attempting to document how these discursive repertoires change over time is but a first step toward a better understanding of male identities in transition. However, these attempts to map out a ‘developmental course’ of particular routines and repertoires should not deter from our main goal, which remains to more finely describe and understand the repertoires employed by 10-14-year-olds, with a close eye on the fabric of these repertoires, and they function in young males’ construction of themselves as adolescents and as males.

REFERENCES:

Bamberg, M. “You’re right, it’s nuts, we can’t trust girls”: Form and function of narratives in identity constructions in 10-year-old males (in preparation)

Bamberg, M. “Positioning with Davie Hogan – Stories, Tellings, and Identities. In C. Daiute & C. Lightfoot (Eds.), Narrative analysis: Studying the development of individuals in society.  London: Sage.

Bamberg, M. “We are young, responsible, and male”:  Form and function of  ‘slut-bashing’ in the identity constructions in 15-year-old males (under review)

Bamberg, M. (2000). Critical personalism, language, and development. Theory & Psychology, 10, 749-767.