Why are more and more straight men locking lips in public – and does it mean the end of homophobia?
When two students asked Eric Anderson, a sociology lecturer at Bath University's department of education, if he had heard of the game "gay chicken", he shook his head. "I had no clue what it was," he says. "So they showed me." The students – both men – went in to kiss each other.
"The challenge was that whoever pulled out first was the loser," Anderson explains. "But because men are no longer afraid of this, they ended up kissing." Anderson was inspired to carry out a new research project.
Growing up in the US, Anderson did his PhD on "the intersection of sport, masculinities and declining homophobia" after coming out at 25.
His research subjects caught the interest of students at Bath, hence the question about "gay chicken". Anderson discovered that the game had almost died out in the UK in the last few years "because nobody ever loses", and began to consider heterosexual university students' views of kissing other men. "I started going through my students' Facebook profiles, with their permission, and was inundated with hundreds of photos of men kissing on their nights out," Anderson reports.
He was intrigued, and decided to investigate further via formal research. He interviewed 145 students, a mixture of men studying sports-related subjects and every third man who left the library on a particular day, from two different universities, plus other male students from a sixth-form college. The results of his survey showed 89% of the polled men saying they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship. And almost 40% added that they had engaged in "sustained kissing, initially for shock value, but now just for 'a laugh'."
"I started telling people about it, but found that a lot of academics literally did not believe me," Anderson explains. "One professor excused it as 'something in the water at Bath' – even though the research covered three different educational establishments. Others flatly told me that they did not believe me. From their 'adult' perspective, this action was unfathomable. They have been stamped with attitudes of acceptable behaviour as a part of their entry into adulthood, and kissing was not permitted between men when they were young. So although they had not been in students' clubs or pubs in 20 or more years, they assumed that nothing had changed. This is known as human plasticity theory; people are stamped with a belief system that they cannot easily shake."
In contrast, Anderson, 43, now believes homophobia is dying out on university campuses, and says attitudes to male kissing reflect that. "Sexual minorities have made tremendous cultural and legal improvements towards equality – the media is saturated with images of sexual minorities, and homosexuality is almost normalised today," he says. "This is particularly true of youth. Young people have disassociated themselves from homophobia the way they once did from racism.
"This is not to say that all youth are gay-friendly, but there's an awareness that anybody can be gay without the homohysteria – where men try to act in sexist, hyper-macho and homophobic ways to prove they are not gay – that used to exist. Young men are becoming softer and more inclusive."
Anderson says men are now kissing each other to show their "intimacy towards one another", but not in a homosexual way. "The kisses seem to be stripped of sexual connotation, and given the percentage of men doing them, they certainly do not indicate a hidden homosexual desire."
The trend, he adds, is not just in a few UK universities or even limited to Britain. "I've interviewed graduate students who did their bachelor degrees at other universities, and been to undergraduate clubs and pubs from Bristol to Birmingham to Edinburgh – I can definitively say that although the percentages might vary depending on the city, the class and the racial background, these kissing behaviours are happening all over the country. I have also found it occurring in a fifth of the 60 university soccer players I interviewed in the US, and have a friend who is beginning formal research into male kissing in Australia after recording it there."
The soaring popularity of male kissing is, Anderson believes, partly thanks to the behaviour of professional sportsmen, especially top football players. "That has been mimicked by footballers at lower levels – a kiss in a moment of sporting glory. When these men brought it into the pubs, their kisses made it OK for other men to do the same. The knock-on effect is that gay men can now kiss in student spaces as well." He believes that his findings indicate that the UK is "near the end of homophobia being acceptable for youth in the UK".
He explains: "You would be gravely mistaken to think that most youth are homophobic. Kids are coming out earlier and earlier – contact theory works: we all have gay friends and family members today. Homophobia is in rapid retreat – it's just not the issue it was when I was a kid."
He expects "many academics and executives will shake their heads at that statement". "When I say that homophobia is in retreat, people often point to one case and think every gay person is oppressed," he says. "One academic said to me last year, 'what about Matthew Sheppard?' [a gay American student who was beaten to death in 2001]. I replied, that was 6,000 miles away, and 11 years ago. We're very good at holding one case of bullying up as a belief that this is the common experience, but the common experience for gay kids is that they are treated just fine."
Anderson is now moving his research on to cuddling. "Last week, I was talking to my second-year students about two straight men cuddling; they laughed, 'what's the big deal about that'," he says. "I polled them, and found that 14/15 said they had spooned another man, in bed, sleeping all night long. Gone are the days in which men would rather sleep on the floor or head to toe; not only do they share beds and cuddle, but they are not homosexualised for this."
Imposing the version of schooling you experienced decades ago onto 21st-century children is a recipe for disaster, argues Phil Beadle
I've got a great new game to pass the dark, cold hours of wintry travel between cold home and colder school: it's called "fantasy education secretary". The rules are simple: you imagine yourself looking a little like Noddy on acid, and invent a series of education policies deliberately designed to destroy any chance of the education of children ever being a responsibility of the state again.
I've been playing it for about the same time as the current secretary of state, and have come up with a few pearlers. They're a little inchoate as a whole, but if you take them on a case-for-case basis, I think there's a fair argument to be made for each one.
First, under the new regime, which I've based on my own schooling, I've decided that all schools will have a genuinely comprehensive intake, so that the sons of accountants can receive their education alongside the sons of lorry drivers. However, the moment they enter the building, any notion of equality of opportunity conferred by the word "comprehensive" will be made purely cosmetic by the pupils being streamed, so that they never mix for "academic" subjects. In a school big enough to have an eight-form entry, we'll give each class a letter from A through to H, so that the top set may call themselves the A stream, the remedials may spend their time learning how to pronounce their class name properly and everyone else will know exactly their place in an immovable hierarchy. (Just like they did in the school I went to.)
The children will remain in these streamed classes for what we'll choose to call the "bac" subjects: English, maths, science, a foreign language (ancient or modern), and a humanity. (I'm still not quite sure what a humanity is, but we'll work that out later). This will ensure that we continue to teach children at least three subjects in which they have absolutely no interest, and which are unlikely to lead to any worthwhile job; as being pointlessly bored in an entirely futile exercise is, as a great man once said, the best training for the mind.
While the children will be properly socially segregated for the "bac" subjects, we'll grudgingly allow a social mix during any lesson of a vocational nature. This will allow a certain social levelling: the middle-class kids won't get to witness the working-class kids' pathetic attempts at declensions or conjugations, but the lower orders will have the chance to laugh at accountants' sons as they enter a losing battle with all manner of lathe, laser level and lump hammer.
Each class will have both an appointed class imbecile and class wreck (who may or may not be the same person – though it was the same person in my class when I was at school). They won't have been elected, but will have been caused by their own hubris to enter an alliance with the most evidently powerful member of the class. The powerful one will appear to give protection, but will openly spit on the shoes of their charge in front of the rest of the class. While doing so, he will give him the same pat on the back that a farmer might give a prize heifer.
We'll exclude anyone who is homosexual, or suspects himself of being so; persecute the ginger; and, in a reversal of the current education secretary's ideas, elevate team sports to a level above academic subjects: getting the younger years to deify the school's star centre-forward's boorishness.
Those who are perceived as physically unattractive will be constantly reminded of this; particularly those with freckles, who will be routinely greeted with cries of, "Hey spotty". And anyone opting to study sociology will be the object of tired satire. Teachers will compulsorily have to wear quasi-amusing braces and be instructed to wear their hair below the collars of their paisley shirts, which, by dictate of the secretary of state, will be of a regulation width. And deputy heads will be appointed on the basis of either their experience or their palpable narcissism.
Vandalism will be an optional subject, as will thievery, and year 10s will enjoy extra-curricular trips to WH Smith, wherein they may learn the beauties of liberating various items of stationery from local shops. Any status among the students of the school that is not dictated by presence in the school's first 11, will be obtained by inventing fictional tales of uncle's gangland connections and through bad impersonations of Terry Venables.
If I were education secretary, these policies would be rushed through before anyone had time to protest. If I were education secretary, we would be forcibly guided back towards a future that was the status quo 30 years ago. And if I were education secretary, I would hope that people would call rapidly for my early resignation, as all I would be doing is imposing the version of schooling I'd experienced generations ago in a south London comp onto 21st-century children, then having them judged on this basis.
As a basis for educational policy, reinstating and making universal your own experience is at best risibly unimaginative; at worst, it's a tissue-thin and profoundly unintelligent means of reinstating the perceived gap in quality between independent and state providers. Schools in Salford and in Canning Town are to be judged against a yardstick that includes their GCSE results in languages. It's clobbering time at the bottom, children.
From the relentlessly idealistic to the depressingly realistic, the predictions for higher education for the year ahead
Andrew Oswald, professor of behavioural science, Warwick business school, who has recently researched happiness and productivity
We can now hope that British universities will once again want to recruit British students. Behind the scenes, British universities have thought overseas students look a much better financial bet. This is likely to change, particularly if fees go up to the top limit. I think that will be good. It's more honest and straightforward, and students will value their education more.
I'm not entirely optimistic because I would expect at least one further backlash against the new fees system and I don't know what form that will take. Then, in 2012, I expect life will settle down, just as when we moved from no fees to fees of £3,000.
Sally Feldman, dean of media, arts and design, University of Westminster
The question baffles me. I haven't really been thinking in terms of "best" – just "least awful".
Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent and author of Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating
People are going to start asking what a university is for. That question has been missing entirely. The reaction has all been about jobs or social mobility. It is possible to use that [question] as a basis for a strong moral position from which to engage with many of the battles that will emerge over the next few years.
At the moment academics are trying to be a bit economistic. What they are saying is: we are not questioning the economic necessity of cuts, but do it somewhere else because arts and social sciences are really important. That isn't sustainable. Or they are making arguments about social mobility, but that isn't sustainable either. Hopefully what will come out is: "This is what a university is about".
Terry Hoad, president-elect of the University and College Union
The first thing to hope for is that universities and departments manage to stay afloat in the face of the onslaught.
We also have to hope that, in the wake of the fees decision, students right across the social range are going to continue to look to HE as a realistic way forward for themselves. And that the reaction to the general onslaught on public provision will include a realisation that HE needs to be sustained for all its benefits – economic and social.
In general, we would hope for a realisation that all these public goods, of which higher education is one, are very much under threat. The scale of it is so dramatic that if we don't have a turnaround of public opinion now we never will. I would also hope that, within our institutions, management, staff and students will find some common cause in the face of threat. We should be standing together to defend the system in something like its present form before it's irreparably damaged.
What we are a bit more hopeful about is that the attack on pensions will be successfully fought off in the new year.
Pam Tatlow, chief executive, university thinktank million+
My hopes for 2011 are: sufficient funding to ensure that whatever their age, everyone who is qualified and wants to go to university can do so; that the debate moves on from the number of free-school-meal pupils studying at Oxbridge to a wider definition of social mobility; that excellent research wherever it is found continues to be funded; for a government strategy that recognises the mutual benefits of transnational HE partnerships and of international students studying in the UK. And that these hopes become reality and do not just remain on another new year wishlist.
Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor, University of Buckingham
The urgent need in 2011 is to persuade parliament and the government that Browne was wrong to propose the amalgamation of all the quangos into a monolithic leviathan called the Higher Education Council. Browne wants this vast centralisation to provide the quangos with greater power over the universities. So the best I can hope for in 2011 is the burying of that Browne proposal.
Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of research universities
I hope the government rethinks its proposal on post-study work. If we don't offer international graduates from UK universities the opportunity to work for a short time in highly skilled jobs, I fear that some of the world's brightest students will choose to study elsewhere. Higher education is one of our most successful export industries; our universities' global reach should be a source of national pride.
Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students
I hope that we can continue to build opposition to government plans to slash wildly at funding without any coherent plan for the future of FE and HE. We've already seen concessions and U-turns due to public and parliamentary resistance, and I hope that we will see the EMA saved and some truly progressive changes made to the HE funding and repayment structures.
Michael Chessum, co-founder of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
What we can hope for is a continuation of the enormous mass movement we have had over the past month.
The 'big society' is about to come and haunt the Tory government because it's about to actually happen, and it won't be nearly as sanitised and well branded and well logoed as they hoped it might have been. It's going to be loud, and full of students.
In terms of concrete things, it has to be about challenging the ideology that lies behind the cuts and rise in fees, and potentially making the government extremely weak and vulnerable. It's a question of organising the sheer anger we have seen over the past month or so into a massive political movement and formulating an alternative.
Richard Wiseman, professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, who has conducted research into luck and self-help
I think the best we can hope for is students valuing their education. One of the problems of it being free is that it's undervalued and students don't turn up to lectures, don't work very hard, don't turn up on time. But with the changes happening now and in the recent past they are realising that because they are paying for it they should put more effort into the product.
There's no point trying to change something that isn't going to change. In terms of resilience it's best to accept that. You decide whether you want to be part of the system. If you do, you have to embrace it and make the most of that opportunity. There is no point getting increasingly bitter and twisted.
There are other ways of being very successful in society without going to university, and some of the more creative and brightest students are going to realise that.
Michael Gove is holding up Alberta in Canada as a role-model for UK education. But is the schools secretary being a little too selective?
Britain's recent further slide down the international education league tables of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has provided Michael Gove with an opportunity for political capital. This follows on from comments he made almost as soon as taking office, in which he highlighted the achievements of Alberta, Canada, which regularly scores more highly than any other English-speaking region in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings.
"In … Alberta, schools have been liberated, given the autonomy enjoyed by charter schools in the US," said Gove in a speech to school leaders in June. "Headteachers control their own budgets, set their own ethos and shape their own environments. And the result – Alberta now has the best-performing state schools of any English speaking regions."
The inference is that what British schools need is autonomy for heads (freeing them from local authority "control"), choice for parents and even more competition between schools.
Gove cites Angus MacBeath, former Edmonton schools superintendent, "who has achieved superb results by, in effect, making every school a charter school … Competition has driven improvement and the same virtuous dynamic has delivered better value for money."
Having recently returned from making a documentary about the Albertan system, and having talked to MacBeath himself, among others, I can't help coming to the conclusion that the schools secretary is being highly selective in his comments about Alberta so as to justify a further large dose of the free market, under the guise of rolling back the state and fitting snugly into Tory ideology.
To this end he has encouraged parents to set up their own schools with their own curriculums, and offered state schools the opportunity to become academies, so divesting them of their relationship with their local education authority. Many believe his underlying intention is to bolster the plethora of private companies who already make millions from the education budget and are waiting to take over the running of state schools, filling the void created by Gove.
I was in Alberta for two weeks, speaking to principals, teachers and parents, and interviewing staff from the provincial government (Alberta Education) and Edmonton Public School Board.
I found Albertan school leaders proud of their state education system. As Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard high school, told me: "We are public schools that offer choice. We're as good as anyone else and we're probably better than many, so if you want to come in as a private school, please come in, and we'll compete with you and blow you out of the water. We welcome charter schools. We'll just build a school beside them and put them out of business."
Instead of seeking to further weaken and dismantle local authorities, Alberta's education system is based on the belief that local school boards – the equivalent of LEAs – rather than private enterprise are best placed to respond to local needs. Though the curriculum and exam system are the same throughout the province, enabling province-wide comparisons of student and teacher achievement, Albertans believe that the needs of each school are best addressed within each district.
Principals have the freedom to shape the culture of their schools, but only within the remit of the district. Each principal is a team player, contracted to the district, and is moved around schools as the superintendent sees fit.
Equitable distributionThe idea that headteachers in Edmonton are totally autonomous is not true. Take the central core of any school's budget, its teachers. In Edmonton, they have worked out what they regard to be an equitable way of distributing staff costs in which the district charges all schools a basic figure for any teacher. So, whether you are hiring a teacher with 25 years' experience or just five months', it's the same cost per teacher. Compare that with heads in the UK, who have to make decisions on the basis of cost rather than educational needs.
Alberta's success story began about 30 years ago, when then-fashionable free market advocates within the provincial government encouraged private and charter schools to set up. As in the US, there is no federal control of education in Canada; each province is responsible for its own education system. For the one third of children who live in rural areas, there is only their local school, much like in the UK. But within the urban areas of Edmonton and Calgary, there was pressure from the private sector, and politicians were offering to fund both private and state schools out of the public pot.
The response of Edmonton's district superintendent at the time, Emery Dosdall, was to find out what parents wanted. As a result, Edmonton Public School Board introduced specialist programmes or options catering for every conceivable interest: sports, faith, language, certain trades, the international baccalaureate, you name it, they offered it.
This kept both the middle classes and the dollars within the state system, eliminating the demand for private schools, several of which closed down or became state schools. It also enabled the district to reinvigorate schools in formerly working-class areas, which were experiencing falling rolls. One of Edmonton's most successful, Victoria School of the Arts, is situated in the downtown area. It was formerly undersubscribed; after reinventing itself as an arts specialist it is now hugely popular with the middle class across the city, but local children have priority.
Educationalists in Alberta believe choice creates "buy in" from parents and students. Visiting Pollard Meadows primary, one of nine across the city that offer both a mainstream, and more traditional, learning approach, I found the parents of both systems very happy with what they'd bought into. Whatever the programme, whether language, faith, science, or a teaching approach such as Cogito, where five-year-olds sit at desks and are taught in rows, all Albertan children are taught the same curriculum. There is no hiving-off of the so-called non-academic child into a vocational curriculum, since all these programmes come on top of, not instead of, the core curriculum.
These ideas increase the social mix. I met a 15-year-old who wanted to become a psychologist but who was taking the hair and beauty programme alongside students contemplating careers in the beauty sector. "It's fun, I'm not very social, and this allows me to make new friends," she told me. Her principal, Jean Stiles, explains: "In these options we want all our kids to be alongside one another. It builds the culture of our school."
In fact, Alberta doesn't stream or set children until they reach 16. When challenged about this, principals greeted me with incredulity. "Why would you want to make a kid feel bad about itself at such a young age?", said Victoria Arts' headteacher, John Beaton.
Although parental choice reinvigorated the state system, all principals agree that it opened up the system to competition. As Stiles says: "Every year in February, the gloves would come off and we'd be fighting each other for students and staff."
The current superintendent, Edgar Schmidt, has made it his priority to address this. As a result, Edmonton principals get together once a month to share ideas and plan strategy. They form links with other school leaders in their own part of the city, and principals from what they term "have" schools support principals from "have not" schools.
At local level, the superintendent influences the culture and priorities of the district, and this crucial role is filled by only the best and brightest of former principals. Aspiring deputy and assistant heads are brought into the district office to work as assistant superintendents, so they can gain a district-wide perspective. Superintendents attend their own training college.
It's hard not to detect a whiff of – dare one say it – socialism about the Edmonton system. But Gove has not pinpointed these characteristics.
MacBeath stresses that it has taken 30 years to put together an education system that leads the world, and he is deeply sceptical of politicians who propose a quick fix, particularly within a free market with ad hoc solutions. MacBeath told me he has been invited to the UK by Gove's office to tell the secretary of state more about how he can replicate Alberta's success. "I doubt whether I'll be telling them what it is they want to hear," he says.
"You have to have a brutal honesty about how badly you're doing. So, the only way that you can change Britain is to start embarrassing people with the ugly truth. The ugly truth is the poorest are getting screwed. And guess what? Taxes are raised for all people, not just the middle class."
Most people in Alberta knew exactly what was wrong with our system (overly influential private sector, too little middle-class buy-in to state schools, selection, streaming etc) – and their solutions are very different from Michael Gove's.
• Rhonda Evans's films about schools in Alberta can be seen at http://www.teachers.tv/videos/autonomy-choice-and-competition