Lost Boys

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, case studies and Blower's experience of navigating school exclusion, the book provides 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 their lives, 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.