Beyond male role models?

Martin Robb presents key findings from a recent ESRC-funded research project, carried out by Open University in partnership with Action for Children, exploring gender identities and practices in work with vulnerable boys and young men.

The research was responding to increasing anxiety about the position of boys and young men, and to the popularity of the ‘male role model’ discourse as an explanation for the so-called ‘problem’ of boys. This discourse is open to challenge for over-simplifying the ways in which young men learn gender identities, for overlooking the positive role of women in boys’ development, and for failing to interrogate the kinds of masculinity that are being ‘modelled’ by those working with boys.