Crawford's Becoming a Man - Book Report/Review Example

The purpose of Crawford's research paper, titled "Becoming a Man- The Views and Experiences of Some Second Generation Australian Males" and published in the Electronic Journal of Sociology in 2003, is to seek the answer to this very question (When does a male become a man) with special reference to the Australian participants of Crawford's study. The research paper Crawford ultimately comes up with is interesting and reflects the researcher's personal views on the matter. Personally, Crawford says at the end of the study, he felt himself becoming a man when he was "ritually and respectfully welcomed into the 'world of men'.

by a group of supportive men, at a men's retreat in northern California", but he feels that currently, each male is left to his own personal means to become a man. He examines this statement, and others made by popular literature on the subject, in this research paper, and it is very interesting to go through Crawford's observations. activities, events, behaviors, knowledge, rituals and lifestyle. They also identify patterns of the group." The group here in Crawford's study includes young and mid-life Australian males aged between 20-26 and 35-45 years and hailing from the beach side suburb of Dee Why in Sydney and the village of Bowral southwest of the city.

All of the males were second-generation Australians, with the exception of one black male who was born of immigrant parents, and all of them belonged to the lower middle class background in terms of occupation and educational qualifications. All of the men involved in the study are heterosexual; of the younger group, only two men had relationships with female partners at the time of the study, and of the older group, four men were divorced, two were single, and one had separated recently.Crawford purposely selected men from a social background which has received little attention from popular and academic literature on the subject, which mainly focuses upon middle class and professional men, and this was perhaps done to lend originality to the study.

Additionally, Crawford recruited the participants through purposive (non-random, snowball) sampling, handpicking males who he thought were suitable for the study. "The sampling was conducted by placing notices in local newspapers and sports club bulletins, the use of a 'gatekeeper' figure, as well as subsequent word-of-mouth recommendation from interviewees. During a phone conversation with the researcher, potential participants were informed about the study, including the requirement that they have lived in the local area for at least 10 years and be Australian-born.

Participation was then on the basis of mutual agreement. The recommendation of a 'gatekeeper' figure was particularly important in accessing interviewees in Dee Why, where recruiting young males was difficult. Several potential interviewees said that they were not interested or failed to turn up for the