Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) hosted the launch of Dr Alex Blower’s debut book, Lost Boys: How Education is Failing Young Working-Class Men, which combines research, real-life case studies and the author’s experience of navigating school exclusion.
Alex, an AUB Research Fellow and founder of Boys' Impact, explains how the book came about:
“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?
“Lost Boys challenges us to reconsider ideas about the role of masculinity in the lives of working-class boys and men, asking 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.
“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.”
The well-attended launch at AUB, which took place on 17 July, followed a celebratory event in Alex’s honour the previous evening at the House of Commons to celebrate the success of Boys’ Impact, a movement dedicated to addressing the gap in educational outcomes for boys and young men who receive free school meals.
A network of educators, researchers and practitioners travelled from across the UK for the evening event, which was hosted and opened by Sam Rushworth, MP for Bishop Auckland in County Durham, who said, “I think this is one of the most consequential conversations that we can be having in our country right now. We simply cannot afford to waste the talents of a generation of young men because we're failing them.”
Reviewers of the book include Jason "Foxy" Fox, Special Forces Instructor on SAS: Who Dares Wins, who described the book as "Compelling, compassionate and uncompromising in its honesty. Lost Boys gives me hope."
Darren McGarvey, author of Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass, called it "A game-changing take on masculinity – where sharp research meets raw personal insight."
Meanwhile, Sam Friedman, author of The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged, said, "A beautifully written book. Thoughtful, deeply personal and combining years of practitioner experience, Blower has produced exactly the kind of generous, well-researched and hopeful account of young working-class men we need to counter dominant reactionary narratives."
Lost Boys: How Education is Failing Working-Class Men by Dr Alex Blower is now available to purchase from Policy Press.
