Citation

Howard AW, EnglandKennedy E. Anthropol. Educ. Q. 2006; 37(4): 347-365.

Affiliation

Hanover College; Antioch College

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Council on Anthropology and Education, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1525/aeq.2006.37.4.347

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines an incident between male student athletes within a locker room at a private school. The reaction of many in this school community to this incident reveals that "hazing" rituals were normally ignored or condoned by many of the parents, coaches, administrators, and teachers who were aware of them. These attitudes changed when the incident was formally brought to the attention of the larger, public audience of the community. We analyze conflicting framings of this incident, exploring how a "joke" in the private space of the locker room became a case of "sexual harassment" in the public arena of the school, and how subsequent conflicts emerged and were resolved. We examine the reasons why different individuals and constituencies had different ways of framing the event, and how this incident can be framed as "hazing," "joking," or a liminoid rite of initiation into an affluent high school's football team.


Keywords: American football;