Boys' underperformance relative to girls has been a major cause for concern in recent years. Some have seen the problem as linked to a dysfunctional anti-school masculine identity. The article explores this idea via a close reading of a popular text where the focus is on boys' behaviour and achievement in the context of a strategy for rethinking masculinity in schools. It suggests that grounding a definition of boys' achievement and identity in a deficit model is likely to result in the deviant labelling which most teachers seek to avoid. Moreover, this model is consonant with a view of research, curriculum and pedagogy in the current period where the constraints on the development of progressive reform are only too evident.