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In drawing on selected interviews with adolescent boys from both Australia and North America, we present an analysis of boys' own capacities for interrogating gender normalisation in their school lives. We set this analysis against a critique of the public media debates about boys' education, which continue to be fuelled by a moral panic about the status of boys as the new disadvantaged. Our aim is to raise questions about boys' existing capacities for problematizing social relations of masculinity and how these might be mobilized in schools to support a counter-hegemonic practice committed to interrogating gender oppression. (Contains 4 notes.)

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The article discusses the need for more male teachers within the context of boys' education in Australia and North America. This particular problem causes moral panic with regards to the failing educational standards for boys and the disproportionate number of female teachers may be the cause of boys' underachievement. The psychological discourses on the brain sex differences support the claim that boys and girls differ in learning and behavior orientations and these discourses have shown significant impact on education programs that address boys' educational needs. The media plays an important role in analyzing the need for male teachers and aids in maintaining the commitment to gender system based on the notion of masculinity and femininity.