AbstractIn this paper the multiple and often contradictory positionings taken up by individual pupils are examined in terms of what classroom texts and talk afford them. This is done with a particular focus on gender. Using transcripts of a number of videotaped classrooms and playgrounds, including those in preschools, the discursive practices through which maleness and femaleness are constituted in classrooms are analysed. The way in which the concepts “male” and “female” are themselves created and sustained as opposite and antithetical categories and are constituted as a property of persons (rather than of language) will be the central focus of the analysis. It will be argued that sex and gender are discursive constructions but that they are taken on as if they were incorrigible properties of persons. The discursive and textual practices through which this incorrigibility is achieved are illustrated through excerpts from videotaped and audiotaped conversations with children.