Revolution and the ritual year: religious conflict and innovation in Cristero Mexico

This article analyses Catholic responses to persecution of the Church by the Mexican state during Mexico's cristero rebellion (1926–9) and seeks to make a new contribution to the revolt's religious history. Faced with the Calles regime's anticlericalism, the article argues, Mexico's episcopate developed an alternative cultic model premised on a revitalised lay religion. The article then focuses on changes and continuities in lay – clerical relations, and on the new religious powers of the faithful, now empowered to celebrate ‘white’ masses and certain sacraments by themselves. The article concludes that persecution created new spaces for lay religious participation, showing the 1910–40 Revolution to be a period of religious, as well as social, upheaval.

The Masculine Habitus as 'Distributed Cognition': A Case Study of 5- to 6-Year-Old Boys in an English Inner-City, Multi-Ethnic Primary School

This article provides a case study demonstrating the active role that 5- to 6-year-old boys in an English inner-city, multi-ethnic primary school play in the appropriation and reproduction of their masculine identities. It is argued that the emphasis on physicality, violence and racism found among the boys cannot be understood without reference to the immediate contexts of the local community and the school within which they are located. In making this argument the article draws upon and applies the concept of the habitus and develops this with the notion of 'distributed cognition' as proposed in sociocultural theory. Some of the implications of this analysis for working with boys in early years settings are discussed in the conclusion.