Notes

1. This article is an adaptation of chapter 5 in Duits (2008).

2. Reasons for this decline are beyond the scope of this article, but see Duits & Van Zoonen (2009) for a discussion of the similar decline in empirical girls’ studies.

3. The key difference between primary and secondary school in the Netherlands is the division of pupils into separate levels. The CITO-test, a nationally used, standardised placement exam, determines the level of secondary education.

4. The routines and rituals are ‘socially established activity patterns that teachers and students pursue’ (Bromme 2002, 15462). Although they are result of pupil and teacher interaction, they are practices relative to the imposed strategic space.

5. Schools are referred to as ‘black’ when more than half of the school’s population is of non-Western origin (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2007, 20), although these terms are clearly contested.

6. The names of the schools, the teachers and the pupils are fictitious.

7. The Kantlijn returned to the renovated building in June 2006. Due to the end-of year play (see below), this classroom was hardly ever used. I therefore focus on the classroom in the temporary building.

8. The stay-on programme at the Kantlijn suffered the problems Van Daalen (2005) describes. As the programme is organised outside of school, these workers had no formal authority or means of punishment over the pupils.

9. This is an institutionalised ritual, and schools can buy different musicals including script and songs. See for instance www.jingo.nl/?page=musicals.

10. Today’s youth has been labelled the internet generation (Livingstone and Bober 2005), or varieties thereof. For instance, on a marketing weblog (youngmarketing.web-log.nl/youngmarketing/2006/07/generatie_etike.html) we can find today’s youth termed ‘cut & paste generation’ (i.e. the first generation that combines styles to express their identities), the ‘thumb generation’ (i.e. the first generation to have the thumb as is the strongest finger due to all the text messaging), and the ‘my media generation’ (i.e. the first, global generation that can customise (‘personalise’) their world).

11. A 2006 report from the Dutch Health Service suggested girls were having sex in exchange for gifts like a CD or a breezer (a fruit-flavoured rum drink). The term breezersletje (i.e. a girl that can be easily seduced to sex) became part of daily language and even made its way into Van Dale’s leading dictionary.