Dude you're a fag

High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process but also a sexual one. She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag" becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse" is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.
Contents
Acknowledgments

1. Making Masculinity: Adolescence, Identity, and High School
Revenge of the Nerds
What Do We Mean by Masculinity?
Bringing in Sexuality
Rethinking Masculinity, Sexuality, and Bodies
Methodology
Organization of the Book

2. Becoming Mr. Cougar: Institutionalizing Heterosexuality and Masculinity at River High
River High's Gender and Sexuality Curriculum
Pedagogy: The Unofficial Gender and Sexuality Curriculum
School Rituals: Performing and Policing Gender and Sexuality
Gender and Sexuality Regimes

3. Dude, You're a Fag: Adolescent Male Homophobia
What Is a Fag? Gendered Meanings
Becoming a Fag: Fag Fluidity
Embodying the Fag: Ricky's Story
Racializing the Fag
Where the Fag Disappears: Drama Performances
Reframing Homophobia

4. Compulsive Heterosexuality: Masculinity and Dominance
A Stud with the Ladies
Getting Girls
Touching
Sex Talk
Girls Respond
I'm Different from Other Guys
Females Are the Puppets

5. Look at My Masculinity! Girls Who Act Like Boys
Tomboy Pasts
Rebeca and the Basketball Girls
The Homecoming Queen: Jessie Chau
The Gay/Straight Alliance Girls
Embodying Masculinity

6. Conclusion: Thinking about Schooling, Gender, and Sexuality
Masculinity at River High
Theoretical Implications
Practical Steps

Appendix: What If a Guy Hits on You? Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Age in Fieldwork with Adolescents
Notes
References
Index
About The Author
C.J. Pascoe is Postdoctoral Scholar with the Digital Youth Project at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, Berkeley.
Awards
Outstanding Book Award, American Education Research Association