Conclusion: Growing Up into Uncertain Futures

Abstract

The restructuring of the economy and the de-industrialization process that has occurred during the last 40 years has altered traditional transitions from school to work across the global north. These economic changes have been accompanied by a set of common held assumptions that men are the new disadvantaged, and that there is a ‘crisis’ in contemporary forms of masculinity. This supposed ‘crisis’ is evidenced in political rhetoric, public policy, high levels of educational underachievement, violence and suicide rates, mental health problems, absent fathers and a lack of male role models. However, these changes have not impacted on all men equally and it is the lives of white, working-class men in communities where heavy industry has not been replaced, who have suffered the most. As an alternative pathway to adulthood and to cope with changing job markets, qualifications and progression into higher education have increasingly been since by governments as the solution to many of these issues for young people. Yet in de-industrialized communities, these contemporary pathways to adulthood that young men have to contend with, are quite different to the traditions of their fathers and grandfathers. With a lack of employment opportunities, the relationship between class and gender has been greatly affected, challenging assumptions around what it means to be a man and what defines masculinity.