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investigating an account of children ‘passing notes’ in the classroom

how boys and girls operate differently in relation to an everyday, classroom regulatory practice

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Susan Danby

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Ann Farrell

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

This article draws on the sociology of childhood framework in order to examine one primary school girl’s account of how the children in her classroom pass notes to each other when they are ‘not allowed to talk at all’. Close examination of the account shows how the girls and boys in this particular classroom co-construct gendered membership activities in order to negotiate the teacher’s regulation of their classroom interactions. The girls competently participate in the covert activity of passing notes outside of teacher regulation, whereas the boys competently participate in the overt activity of passing notes, thereby gaining the membership of their male teacher into their activity. The boys draw upon their gendered membership activity as a strategy for collaborating with their teacher in the construction of a new classroom order. This work is an important part of our ongoing study of how children understand and deal with governance in their everyday lives.

Key Words: classroom interactions • gender • governance • membership categorization analysis • social agency • sociology of childhood

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