Since the mid-2000s, consistent commentary from politicians and media outlets in the UK have presented low educational attainment and low aspiration as defining attributes of working-class boys in education. It has often characterised them as misogynistic, aggressive and unwilling to learn. But how true is this?
Combining research, real-life case studies and the author’s experience of navigating school exclusion, this book provides clear recommendations for how to better support the health, wellbeing and vulnerabilities of working-class boys and men through both policy and practice.
Challenging us to reconsider ideas about the role of masculinity in the lives of working-class boys and men, the book asks what would change if, instead of focusing on perceived individual failures, we considered the troubled relationship between working-class boys and the social and educational systems in which they reside.
Table of Content
1. Introduction: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
2. Masculinity and Mental Health: The Big Red Button
3. Social Mobility: Navigating the Aspiration Trap
4. Societal Change: Boys, Inequality, and a ‘Successful’ Future
5. Working-class Boys in London: The Capital’s Overlooked Lads
6. Making the Grades: Teachers, Schools and Masculine Expectations
7. Boys who Care: Masculinity, Class, and Being a Young Carer
8. Being a Boy: Learning from the Real Experts
9. Boys’ Impact: A Roadmap to Hope
10. Conclusion
About the author
Alex Blower is Research Fellow at Arts University Bournemouth. Having faced challenges related to mental ill health and school exclusion as a young man, his motivation for writing this book is as personal as it is professional.
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