Learning Bodies

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: The Body in Youth and Childhood Studies

   • Julia Coffey, Shelley Budgeon, Helen Cahill

   Pages 1-19

3. The Young Body: Gender and Sexualities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Queer Youthscapes in Asia: Embodied Modernities and Trans-Embodiments

      • Audrey Yue

      Pages 23-38

   3. Broad Minds, Narrow Possibilities: The Embodiment of Gender

      • Jack Migdalek

      Pages 39-52

   4. Steeling the Junior Body: Learning Sport and Masculinities in the Early Years

      • Deevia Bhana

      Pages 53-68

   5. “They’ve Always Got Flat Tummies and It Really Bugs Us”

      • Sue Jackson

      Pages 69-83

   6. “Fuck Your Body Image”: Teen Girls’ Twitter and Instagram Feminism in and Around School

      • Hanna Retallack, Jessica Ringrose, Emilie Lawrence

      Pages 85-103

   7. Internet Sex Chatting and “Vernacular Masculinity” Among Hong Kong Youth

      • John Nguyet Erni

      Pages 105-122

4. The Young Body: Reconceptualising Health, Illness and Recovering

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 123-123

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   2. The Resisting Young Body

      • Nick J. Fox, Pam Alldred

      Pages 125-140

   3. Girls and Sexting: The Missing Story of Sexual Subjectivity in a Sexualized and Digitally-Mediated World

      • Carla Rice, Erin Watson

      Pages 141-156

   4. Recovering Bodies: The Production of the Recoverable Subject in Eating Disorder Treatment Regimes

      • Jen Rinaldi, Andrea LaMarre, Carla Rice

      Pages 157-172

   5. G Major to D Major to a Minor 7 (A Progression to Recovery)

      • Cameron Duff

      Pages 173-189

   6. ‘She Was Becoming Too Healthy and It Was Just Becoming Dangerous’: Body Work and Assemblages of Health

      • Julia Coffey

      Pages 191-203

5. Embodying Research and Pedagogy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 205-205

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   2. ‘Sticky’ Learning: Assembling Bodies, Objects and Affects at the Museum and Beyond

      • Dianne Mulcahy

      Pages 207-222

   3. Playing the Inside Out: Using Drama as an Embodied Medium Through Which to Work on Changing Gender Norms

      • Helen Cahill

      Pages 223-240

   4. Visual Ethics with and Through the Body: The Participation of Girls with Disabilities in Vietnam in a Photovoice Project

      • Claudia Mitchell, Naydene de Lange, Xuan Thuy Nguyen

      Pages 241-257

   5. Conclusion: Towards Embodied Theories, Methodologies and Pedagogies

      • Julia Coffey, Shelley Budgeon, Helen Cahill

      Pages 259-267

'Learning Bodies’ addresses the lack of attention paid to the body in youth and childhood studies.  Whilst a significant range of work on this area has explored gender, class, race and ethnicity, and sexualities – all of which have bodily dimensions – the body is generally studied indirectly, rather than being the central focus. This collection of papers brings together a scholarly range of international, interdisciplinary work on youth, with a specific focus on the body. The authors engage with conceptual, empirical and pedagogical approaches which counteract perspectives that view young people’s bodies primarily as ‘problems’ to be managed, or as sites of risk or deviance. The authors demonstrate that a focus on the body allows us to explore a range of additional dimensions in seeking to understand the experiences of young people. The research is situated across a range of sites in Australia, North America, Britain, Canada, Asia and Africa, drawing on a range of disciplines including sociology, education and cultural studies in the process. This collection aims to demonstrate – theoretically, empirically and pedagogically – the implications that emerge from a reframed approach to understanding children and youth by focusing on the body and embodiment.

• Embodying gender
• Sexualisation of youth
• The young body
• Youth and gender
• Youth sexualities
• sport and masculinities
• childhood studies

• University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia

  Julia Coffey

• University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

  Shelley Budgeon

• University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

  Helen Cahill

Julia Coffey is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her empirical work focuses on youth in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, the body, health wellbeing and gender. Julia is co-editor of the ‘Bodies’ section of the Springer Handbook of Childhood and Youth Studies. She has written about the body, youth, gender and health in a diverse range of scholarly journals including Journal of Youth Studies, Journal of Sociology, Journal of Gender Studies, BMC Medical Education and Youth Studies Australia.


Shelley Budgeon is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK. She has published widely in the areas of gender and feminist theory; personal relationships; and self-identity and social change in journals includingSociology, Body and Society, the European Journal of Women’s Studies, the Women’s Studies International Forum and Sexualities. Her monographs include Choosing a Self (Praegar) and Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Gender in Late Modernity (Palgrave).


Helen Cahill is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She works in youth, education and health promotion research, specialising in the use of participatory strategies in youth research and education. She has developed a number of Australia’s leading drug education and mental health promotion programs for schools, and a range of youth leadership, violence-reduction and sexuality education programs used in developing countries within the Asia-Pacific region.

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