Exploring the limitations of current approaches to addressing boys' education, this study illustrates how initiatives such as single-sex classes and schools for boys, the boy friendly curriculum and the call for more male teachers as role models have the potential to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the problems that boys are supposedly experiencing in schools. The book demonstrates that such approaches to boys' education have failed to acknowledge the significant impact of masculinity on both boys' and girls' lives and in turn have failed to address equity issues experienced by both minority boys and girls in schools. This study argues for new policies and a pedagogical reform agenda that engages with a more nuanced understanding of what constitutes good teaching and effective learning in schools for all students, while simultaneously interrogating the constrains imposed by dominant or stereotypical constructions of masculinity.

Introduction: Beyond Structural Reforms
Education Policy, Gender and Boys' Schooling
Boy-friendly Schooling
Single Sex Classes and Schools for Boys
The Male Teacher Debate
'Boys' Peer Group Relationships in Schools
References

BOB LINGARD is Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He has also been Professor at The University of Edinburgh and the University of Sheffield, UK. He has published extensively and his books include Gender and Changing Educational Management, Men Engaging Feminisms: Profeminism, Backlashes and Schooling and Leading Learning: Making Hope Practical in Schools. He is editor of the journal Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education and is on the editorial board of five other international journals in education. 
 
WAYNE MARTINO is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, The University of Western Ontario, Canada. His publications include Gendered Outcasts and Sexual Outlaws, So What's a Boy? Addressing Issues of Masculinity and Schooling and Being Normal is the only way to be: Adoelscent Perspectives on Gender and School.
 
MARTIN MILLS is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Queensland, Australia. His publications include Challenging Violence in Schools: An Issue of Masculinity, Leading Learning: Making Hope Practical in Schools and Productive Pedagogies, Assessment and Performance.