A novel diamine-based benzoxazine monomer containing aryl ether and bulky fluorene groups (BEF-p) was prepared from the reaction of 9,9-bis-[4-(p-aminophenoxy)-phenyl]fluorene with paraformaldehyde and phenol. The chemical structure of monomer was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and H-1 and C-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1 and C-13 NMR). The polymerization behavior of monomer was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and FTIR. The curing kinetics was studied by non-isothermal DSC, and the kinetic parameters were determined. The autocatalytic model based on two kinetic methods (Starink-LSR method and direct LSR method) showed good agreement with experimental results. The thermal and mechanical properties of poly(BEF-p) were evaluated with DSC, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the cured polymer exhibited higher glass transition temperature (T-g) and better thermal stability compared with diaminodiphenylmethane-based benzoxazine(P-ddm), and was slightly lower than those of fluorene diamine-phenol-based polybenzoxazine (poly(BF-p)). (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.