Narratives of teenage boys : constructing selfhood and enacting identities : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
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Date
2011
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Open Access Location
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Massey University
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Abstract
In Western societies, contemporary youth discourses tell us that teenage boys are all
too often ‘trouble’ and ‘troubled’, especially in terms of risky behaviour, mental
health concerns, and educational under-achievement. Contemporary understandings of
these issues have largely been informed by developmental psychological theory, and a
plethora of management strategies and policies have emerged out of the debates about
the apparent ‘boy crisis’. Yet we know little of how boys make sense of their
experiences, and negotiate their relationships with the people and environments that
constitute their everyday social world. This research applies a critical approach to
developmental psychology and identity construction. It contributes to our knowledge
of how teenage boys perform masculinities and enact resilience in diverse contexts,
and how they are influenced by, and respond to, social and cultural discourses that
frame and shape their behaviour and sense of self. Participants were eleven senior
male students from a New Zealand high school, who provided narrative accounts of
critical events during their adolescent years by means of personal time-lines and
individual interviews. Findings include the boys’ understandings of peer and family
relationships, high school culture, and subject positions available to them within the
wider community and a global society. Boys positioned themselves individually and
collectively as they reproduced, resisted, and countered age and gender stereotypes.
They revealed themselves to be competent social actors in a complex world,
constructing multiple identities and drawing on resources afforded by their social and
institutional connections. Thus, they showed that they are actively engaged in the
process of creating legitimate spaces to occupy, and which enable them to imagine
possible future selves. The findings generated ideas for how we may work more
effectively in our clinical practice with teenage boys if we privilege their perspectives
and the meanings they attach to their everyday experiences, and problematise
discursively constructed understandings of adolescence and adolescent boys.
Implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed, and ideas for
future research are suggested.
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Keywords
Identity (Psychology), Adolescent boys