This book takes a critical view of masculinities through an investigation of first-in-family males transitioning to higher education. Drawing on six in-depth longitudinal case studies, the focus is on how young men from working-class backgrounds engage with complex social inequalities, as well as the various capitals they draw upon to ensure their success. Through the longitudinal approach, the work problematises the rhetoric of ‘poverty of aspirations’ and foregrounds how class and gender influence the lives and futures of these young men. The book demonstrates how the aspirations of these young men are influenced by a complex interplay between race/ethnicity, religion, masculinity and social class. Finally, the book draws connections between the lived experiences of the participants and the implications for policy and practice in higher education. Drawn from a larger research project, each case study compels the reader to think critically regarding masculinities in relation to social practices, institutional arrangements and cultural ideologies. This is essential reading for those interested in widening participation in higher education, gender theory/masculinities, longitudinal research and social justice.

This book would appeal to those interested in widening participation, gender theory/masculinities, longitudinal research and social justice.

This edited book provides international insights and recommendations around topics of gender and diversity in higher education linking to larger societal goals of improving equality. Within each of the four sections – Student recruitment and retention, Student experience, Faculty and staff experiences and culture, and Higher education cultures of teaching and research – topics unpack and speak to gender and diversity, equity, inclusion and access, social justice, and leadership and sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs). Incorporating innovative processes and methods, the researchers address how the experiences of groups who have been subordinated and marginalized can be heard, proposing a re-imagination of empowerment and leadership within higher education and best practices for the benefit of ongoing higher education development. This book is ideal reading for higher education leaders, students on higher education courses, leadership courses, gender in education, as well as researchers, practitioners, for topics of gender and diversity, equity, inclusion and access, social justice, leadership and sustainability in HEIs.

Despite efforts to widen participation, first-in-family students, as an equity group, remain severely under-represented in higher education internationally. This book explores and analyses the gendered and classed subjectivities of 48 Australian students in the First-in-Family Project serving as a fresh perspective to the study of youth in transition. Drawing on liminality to provide theoretical insight, the authors focus on how they engage in multiple overlapping and mutually informing transitions into and from higher education, the family, service work, and so forth. While studies of class disadvantage and widening participation in HE remains robust, there is considerably less work addressing the gendered experiences of first-in-family students.

This book explores how boys from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds disengage from their education, and are resultantly severely underrepresented in post-compulsory education. For those who attend university, many will be first-in-their-family. As first-in-family students, they may encounter significant barriers which may limit their participation in university life and their acquisition of social and cultural capital. Drawing on a longitudinal study of young Australian men pursuing higher education, the book provides the first detailed account of socially mobile working-class masculinities. Investigating the experiences of these young men, this book analyses their acclimatisation to new learning environments as well as their changing subjectivities. The monograph draws on various sociological theories to analyse empirical data and make practical recommendations which will drive innovation in widening participation initiatives internationally. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in widening participation, transitions, social mobility and Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities.

Young Working Class Men in Transition uses a unique blend of concepts from the sociologies of youth and masculinity combined with Bourdieusian social theory to investigate British young working-class men’s transition to adulthood. Indeed, utilising data from biographical interviews as well as an ethnographic observation of social media activity, this volume provides novel insights by following young men across a seven-year time period. Against the grain of prominent popular discourses that position young working-class men as in ‘crisis’ or as adhering to negative forms of traditional masculinity, this book consequently documents subtle yet positive shifts in the performance of masculinity among this generation. Underpinned by a commitment to a much more expansive array of emotionality than has previously been revealed in such studies, young men are shown to be engaged in school, open to so called ‘women’s work’ in the service sector, and committed to relatively egalitarian divisions of labour in the family home. Despite this, class inequalities inflect their transition to adulthood with the ‘toxicity’ of neoliberalism - rather than toxic masculinity - being core to this reality. Problematising how working-class masculinity is often represented, Young Working Class Men in Transition both demonstrates and challenges the portrayal of working class masculinity as a repository of homophobia, sexism and anti-feminine acting. It will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as youth studies, masculinity studies, gender studies, sociology of education and sociology of work.

Foregrounding the ways in which men experience transnational migration, Migratory Men: Place, Transnationalism and Masculinities considers how we conceptualise and theorise mobile men in a global context. Bringing together studies from around the world (e.g. Australia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Italy), this collection foregrounds how the transnational migratory experience profoundly reshapes men’s complex identity practices. Specifically, the collection highlights how transnational migratory aspirations and experiences often lead men to reimagine local patterns of masculinity and/or reaffirm prescriptive gender roles as they encounter new spaces/places. In presenting interdisciplinary research, the international scholars consider the powerful roles of economics, politics and social class in shaping masculinities. Furthermore, the contributors emphasise how men affectively and agentically experience migration and how interaction with new spaces/places can often lead to negotiations between disempowerment and empowerment. As such, this collection will appeal to both non-academic readers who share transnational migratory aspirations and experiences and academic readers across the social sciences with interests in gender and sexuality, migration and diaspora, transnationalism and contemporary masculinities. Chapters 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

This book highlights novel and pragmatic health promotion efforts being adopted with boys and young men of colour (BYMOC) globally that apply a strengths-based approach. Men's adoption of risky health practices and reluctance to seek help and engage in preventive health behaviours have frequently been used to explain their poorer health outcomes, particularly among adolescent boys and young men, and disproportionately affecting BYMOC. Emerging literature on equity and men's health has conveyed that intersections among age, race, sexuality, socioeconomic status and geography contribute to a complex array of health and social inequities. There is growing evidence to suggest these inequities shape the health practices of BYMOC. Unfortunately, these health and social inequities can have negative lifelong consequences. An increased focus on reducing health inequities has led to a greater focus on health promotion actions that address social and cultural determinants of health. The vulnerabilities that BYMOC face are diverse and are reflected in a range of tailored health promotion interventions. Health promotion approaches that influence structural and systemic inequities experienced by BYMOC have been a prominent feature. In this volume, the editors and contributors purposefully bring together international research and promising practice examples from Australia, the United States, New Zealand, and Canada to celebrate health promotion strategies that help to improve the health and social trajectories of BYMOC. In doing so, the book moves beyond discussing the health inequities faced by this population, to talk about the practical actions to address them in context. Health Promotion with Adolescent Boys and Young Men of Colour brings together diffuse strands of scholarship relating to male health promotion, gender/masculinities and health, equity and men's health, and gender and youth development. The book is a unique and useful resource for practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and students with an interest in health promotion/public health, social work/social policy, education, men's health, youth development, Indigenous studies, and health and social equity.

This book explores the unique set of challenges faced by mature-age male undergraduates as they adapt to university study. The authors examine the motivations of mature male students for enrolling in higher education and their aspirations for life after graduation, in doing so filling a crucial gap in the current literature. Later access to higher education carries numerous benefits, including improved social mobility: it is therefore paramount to understand why men tend to be underrepresented among mature students. Exploring the intersections of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, culture and gender, and paying careful attention to the stories of the students themselves, the authors provide a thought-provoking analysis of an underrepresented student group. The book will be of interest and value to students and scholars of mature-age male students, and aspirations and motivations within higher education more generally.

This book explores the ways in which neoliberal capitalism has reshaped the lives of working-class men around the world. It focuses on the effects of employment change and of new forms of governmentality on men’s experiences of both public and private life. The book presents a range of international studies—from the US, UK, and Australia to Western and Northern Europe, Russia, and Nigeria—that move beyond discourses positing a ‘masculinity crisis’ or pathologizing working-class men. Instead, the authors look at the active ways men have dealt with forms of economic and symbolic marginalization and the barriers they have faced in doing so. While the focus of the volume is employment change, it covers a range of topics from consumption and leisure to education and family.