BLOG: Rob Elkington, Director, Arts Connect
There has been a noticeable increase in interest and concern about the impact on boys’ behaviours by negative and damaging voices from the ‘manosphere’. The response to the drama ‘Adolescence’, written by and starring Stephen Graham, led to a public conversation about the vulnerabilities of boys, a belief that ‘something must be done’ and a fear over the influence of Andrew Tate in particular, who stood as a shorthand for malign influences that often feel beyond control.
Although the headlines created by ‘Adolescence’ may have moved on it did create a space to profile the excellent national work of the Boys Impact Hub, founded by Dr Alex Blower, a practitioner led and research informed movement. The purpose of the Boys Impact Hub is to develop educational practices that transform boys’ experience of education, and especially boys on free school meals who have amongst the worst outcomes of any group; a reality that has not shifted in decades and the reasons for this are far more complex than first appear.
While the misogynistic views of social media influencers are both a symptom of the problem and a contributor, the causes lie elsewhere. The core issue is about how boys and young men are enabled to develop their masculine identities in productive ways in education and society. The question is about how boys can be seen as an asset, not as problem to manage, who thrive in an environment of positive expectations about who they can become, and what they can achieve in life.
Our new R&D programme ‘Boys Impact in Art’ is working with secondary art teachers to research how this aim might be translated and experienced by boys in the day-to-day art classroom. We’ll be drawing on the resources from the Boys Impact Hub in our project design, in particular the Taking Boys Seriously Principles for working with boys, and recently published evidence about what works in teacher practice . As with all our work at the core is the living practice of artists for inspiration, and we are delighted to be involving Will Kew at the IKON Gallery and artists such as Dinosaur Kilby in the project.
Our purpose at Arts Connect is to lead change for a richer and better arts education for young people. We think a lot about how we can do that from ‘where we are’, how teachers’ experience educational change and how that process can be more effective and more human. I’ve been working on this since my days at Creative Partnerships nearly 25 years ago when we had the chance to look in real depth at the dimensions of the problem.
What I am certain about, informed by the evidence of our work and the research literature, is that treating people with ‘Dignity and Respect’ is central to successful professional learning and change. It also turns out this is central to practices that engage boys, leading to secure relationships between them and their teachers as the foundation for learning. We look forward to finding out how this works in the art classroom over the coming months.
