Identity matters: Language, practices and the (non)performance of rudeness in a Pupil Referral Unit

I show that when these incompatible practices overlapped people might become rude, but they might also emerge as wits, winners, gibberers, liars or gossips, and which identities came to matter was contingent on the socio-material relations in play. I conclude that one way in which harmony was maintained during precarious moments of difference in a lesson, was through skilled staff who, in being able to participate in both classroom and banter/boyin practices, were able to mediate between the two when it mattered by crafting alternative identities.