Why we need to start a new conversation about boys and young working-class men in education  

Dr Alex Blower 

Founder, Boys’ Impact 

Dr Alex Blower is a researcher, writer and practitioner based at the Arts University Bournemouth. He is the founder of Boys’ Impact, a UK-wide collective of educational practitioners and researchers who are committed to improving educational outcomes for young men who are eligible for Free School Meals. In this blog, he explains more around this work and the recent Boys’ Impact Conference hosted at the University of Wolverhampton,  

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From the 2006 report to the then Department for Education and Skills on Raising Boys’ Achievement by academics from the University of Cambridge, to the 2016 report on the underachievement of young men in higher education by the Higher Education Policy Institute, the issues have been articulated and rearticulated for years.

Disappointingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, since then very little has changed. Data from the Department for Education surrounding GCSE attainment in 2022/23 evidence that in England just 23.5% of males who were eligible for FSM attained a grade 9-5 in GCSE Maths and English, compared with 43% who were not. The gaps in access to university for young working-class men are even more stark. Data from the academic year 2021/22 evidence that less than two in ten White British, and White and Black Caribbean young men who were eligible for Free School Meals progressed into higher education by the age of 19. For those who were not, both of those figures more than double.

Entrenched gaps

So, given that policy makers have had a collective awareness of the issue for longer than young people currently attending secondary schools have been alive, why are the gaps still so entrenched?  Well as with most issues that are related to deeply embedded societal inequality, the answer is complex. In classroom settings they are deeply linked to a range of challenges experienced by young men. These relate to masculine expectations, peer pressure, relationships, mental health and poverty. They are linked to the preconceptions held by educators, and the messages transmitted to young men through our societal structures. Expectations surrounding what being a man ‘should’ mean, especially if you happen to be from a working-class background. However, for decades this complexity has been overlooked. In its place have been persistent narratives which have created a stereotypical caricature of who young working-class boys are within our national psyche.

Rather than being viewed as young men with a broad array of likes, interests, and hopes for the future, they have been positioned as aggressive, anti-authoritarian and morally lacking. We have seen it in the way they have been characterised as aspirationally deficient by policy makers, and in newspaper headlines telling us that one in three teachers believe young men view being asked to read as a punishment.  In short, we have done an incredible job of convincing ourselves that young men are the problem. That these decisions are made consciously and independently. Under the collective lens we have applied to the challenge, there is no room to appreciate the link between the young men and the conditions they exist in. Instead, the overwhelming focus is on how we further problematise their existence in the world.

Why focus on working-class boys?

Then of course, there is the argument about whether we should even be doing so in the first place. In a patriarchal societal which is plagued by gender inequality, sexual harassment and violence against women and children, are the working-class boys really where we should be investing our resource? In recent years the emergence of toxic social media influencers such as Andrew Tate has gone a long way to answering that question for us. Rather than targeted engagement with young men in education being viewed as optional, the rise in misogynistic content on social media platforms such as TikTok has made increasingly made it a necessity. Taking residence in the gap that has been left by stereo-typical, deficit drive engagement with young men in education, we now find education of another form. Taught through mobile phones and three-minute videos, young men learn that their traditional role as breadwinners is under threat. That their masculinity and power is being eroded by pernicious social actors who wish to emasculate them. And with the approach we have taken in educational policy and practice working-class we continue to play right into these influencer’s hands.

Rather than an established societal consensus on the issue and what to do about it, we see polarisation. An endless ideological back and forth between actors from different sides of the political spectrum arguing about whether we should work with young men because they are ‘perpetrators of misogyny in waiting’, or because the feminist movement ‘has pushed them out’. If we are to move forward constructively and meaningfully in education and as a wider society this needs to stop. Whilst it may score political points, it comes at the very real expense of creating a future where our young men can expect to lead happy, secure, and fulfilled lives. Journeys into adulthood where they are less likely to contribute to statistics regarding school exclusion, death by suicide, addiction, homelessness or entry into the criminal justice system, and more likely to be compassionate, empathetic adults engaged in healthy, loving relationships.

Using a different lens

We need to move forward using a different lens to view the issue. In the Book Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, JJ Bola writes:

“Because society is generally patriarchal, in that it favours men that occupy privileged positions, it makes it seem as though men do not have issues they also suffer from. It is a kind of double-edged sword, a poisonous panacea: that is to say, the same system that puts men at an advantage in society is essentially the same system that limits them, inhibits their growth and eventually leads to their breakdown”

In other words, two truths can, and must, be held at once. We live in a patriarchal society which is a sword that cuts both ways, harming young men and young women alike. For men, the injuries relate to mental ill health and suicide, entry into the criminal justice system and homelessness. Whilst for women it rears its ugly head in gender pay gaps, sexual harassment, and violence against women and children.  It is a set of societal conditions which benefit very few, and one in which it is imperative that we create space for young men to talk and connect in spaces where they feel voice is valued and valuable. Not by focusing on perceived deficiencies, not by focusing on what they can be in the future, but by focusing on who they can be in the future. By working to cultivate the conditions where a happy, healthy future isn’t an abstract hope or ambition, but rather it is an expectation.

As a network of educators, researchers and practitioners, we contest deficit narratives, taking a strengths-based, evidence-led approach to work in educational research, policy and practice. We are stubbornly optimistic that a more hopeful future exists for our young working-class men, and we’d love for to join our efforts to make it a reality.

Follow the work of Boys’ Impact and get involved here.