Adding to the research literature on peer group relations in primary schools
By IOE Blog Editor, on 18 February 2025

Credit: ake1150 via Adobe Stock.
18 February 2025
By Jon Swain
Within the field of education research there is a rich tradition of qualitative research that seeks to give voice to and understand the lives of children, to which my book, Negotiating Gendered Identities in Primary School: Children’s lives with their peers, is a recent addition. Published in open access, it focuses on how 10-11-year-old girls and boys experience life in their informal peer group. Based on research I carried out in two co-educational primary schools, one state and one independent, it explores the dynamics of friendships and social hierarchies, identities and how time is spent outside of lessons, including the use of social media. It interrogates how children make meanings: who they think they are, what it means to be a girl or a boy, and what forms of femininity and masculinity are most dominant. (more…)