The ‘Renaissance Child’: high achievement and gender in late modernity

This paper draws on the concept of the ‘Renaissance Child’ to illustrate the ways in which gender influences the opportunities and possibilities of high-achieving pupils. Using data from a study of 12–13-year high-achieving boys and girls based in schools in England, the paper considers the ways in which a group of popular boys was able to show an interest and success in literacy and English without posing threats to their masculine subjectivities. In contrast, a group of high-achieving girls experienced greater constraints in their attempts to balance an interest and success in physical education and sports whilst also performing acceptable constructions of femininity. The paper concludes that the concept of ‘Renaissance Child’ is fruitful for research in education that is concerned with the production of neoliberal subjectivities. However, whilst boys can access and perform ‘Renaissance Masculinity’, constructions of femininity impede even the highest-achieving girls from equivalent subject positions.