{"id":28413,"date":"2026-05-06T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28413"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T10:36:16","slug":"what-working%e2%80%91class-boys-need-to-succeed-at-school-respect-and-open-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/what-working%e2%80%91class-boys-need-to-succeed-at-school-respect-and-open-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"What working\u2011class boys need to succeed at school: respect and open conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Across the UK, working\u2011class boys are navigating an unprecedented convergence of pressures. There are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tes.com\/magazine\/teaching-learning\/secondary\/improving-school-engagement-for-disadvantaged-boys\">entrenched gaps<\/a>\u00a0between working-class boys and their peers in their levels of attainment at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk\/publication\/policy-making-left-behind-groups-boys-low-income-families\">every stage<\/a> of education, <em>said Jon Rainford, Lecturer in Education, The Open University.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Often, however, the solutions for addressing this gap in attainment have roots in assumptions and stereotypes. These tend towards positioning working-class boys as somehow suffering from an innate\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk\/lost-boys\">deficiency<\/a>: apathy, laziness or a lack of ambition for their future careers and employment. The evidence does not back these stereotypes up.<\/p>\n<p>Our research has focused on understanding the experiences of these boys. In 2023, we\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3167\/bhs.2023.160207\">carried out research<\/a>\u00a0that used creative activities to explore what being a young man meant for them. We found that some of the young men felt the need to create protective identities linked to aggression, emotional suppression and educational disinterest at school to avoid harm. For them, being a boy who expressed themselves was a risky enterprise. One boy said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I feel like you know the bullying and torment would definitely go up quite a bit for, I guess, you know, something stupid like writing how I feel on a page.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bristoluniversitypressdigital.com\/monobook\/book\/9781447370277\/9781447370277.xml?tab_body=abstract-excerpt\">worked with young men<\/a>\u00a0who were open and able to engage in challenging and complex discussions, but who made it clear to us that doing this in their own educational environments would potentially lead to social, emotional and potentially even physical harm.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/what-working-class-boys-need-to-succeed-at-school-respect-and-open-conversations-277912\">Read the full article on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Picture credit: RDNE Stock Project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Across the UK, working\u2011class boys are navigating an unprecedented convergence of pressures. There are\u00a0entrenched gaps\u00a0between working-class boys and their peers in their levels of attainment at\u00a0every stage of education, said Jon Rainford, Lecturer in Education, The Open University. Often, however, the solutions for addressing this gap in attainment have roots in assumptions and stereotypes. These [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[861,1525,1640,2200],"class_list":["post-28413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-languages-health","tag-faculty-of-stem","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28416,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28413\/revisions\/28416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}