Lost Boys

How Education Is Failing Young Working-Class Men
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-4473-7024-6
Verlag: Bristol University Press

Buch, Englisch, 192 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 372 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Blower, Alex

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Altersgruppen Kinder- und Jugendsoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Mobilität
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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: The will to change

Über Autor(innen)

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.