“Boys will be boys”: what do early childhood teachers have to do with it?

This paper focuses on the ways in which a selected group of early childhood teachers in grades one and two, located in a predominantly white middle‐class context in Durban, South Africa ascribe meaning to young boys they teach. The study finds that early childhood teachers are bearers of masculinity and incorporate taken‐for‐granted assumptions of boys' behaviour into their understandings of gender, leading to boys' visibility not only in terms of unequal power relations but also in negatively inscribing boys as disruptive. Further the paper provides evidence which shows how race and class have forged particular conceptions of male hegemony which lead to the teachers' investment in a “rugger bugger” masculinity. It is argued that early childhood teachers' investments in hegemonic masculinity are restrictive and work against equality for both boys and girls in early childhood. In this regard the paper signifies the need to address masculinities in the early years of South African primary schooling.