Hegemonic Masculinity in Outdoor Education

Overview & Synopsis

Increasing attention is being paid to gender in outdoor education, with scholars and practitioners sharing experiences of sexism and heterosexism and explicitly calling for an examination of hegemonic masculinity in the field. The purpose of this paper is to respond to that call by: summarizing scholarship on hegemonic and alternative masculinities; reviewing research on masculinities in education that is particularly relevant to outdoor education; pointing to existing work in outdoor education that lays a foundation for examining masculinity, including promising recent research; and offering suggestions for disrupting hegemonic masculinity and creating conditions for more diverse gender performances. Since there has been so little research on masculinities in outdoor education thus far, there remain significant unanswered questions. It is past time for focused examination of hegemonic masculinity in the field as one strategy for addressing gender inequity.