Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools

What do we want for our boys? Matt and Mark explode myths, challenge some of our preconceptions and suggest alternative routes to success in our raising and educating of boys. And they don't dodge the most sensitive issues.

This is a thoughtful, balanced, thoroughly-researched, eminently sensible and practical consideration of how we can support boys to be their best in the classroom and beyond it. It recognises and addresses the pressures boys are under as they make their journey towards manhood. Mark and Matt skilfully demonstrate that if we help boys in schools we will improve education for girls, too.

Each chapter is structured according to the story, the research, the solutions: this is positive and forward-looking, asking not only what's not wanted? but what's wanted instead? and so focusses on the future rather than only the past and present.

The authors explain honestly, courageously and with humility how and why they have rethought their own perceptions of the boy problem to come to a more nuanced and carefully considered understanding of why boys behave in certain stereotypical ways and how they can be encouraged, motivated and inspired to be their best selves. I learnt a huge amount from this book, and I suggest you will, too.

Jill Berry

Former head, now leadership consultant

This is a fabulous book. It's going to be a must-read for any teacher, leader or parents who have ever had concerns or questions about boys' attitudes to school, to learning, to sex, to each other. Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools is impressively ambitious in its scope, tackling a range of key issues with a brilliant blend of the personal and the analytical with a clear, helpful repeating structure: the story, the research, the solutions. Matt and Mark speak from experience, acknowledging their biases and changes of heart; both have voices of conviction and an absolutely authentic desire to find real answers to difficult problems. The final 'other voices' chapter illustrates this perfectly.

I loved reading this book and I know thousands of others will too.

Tom Sherrington

Author and education consultant

Having just read Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools by Matt Pinkett and Mark Roberts, I have found myself with a sore neck. Why? Because I found myself nodding in agreement page after page. Like many teachers, at various stages in my career, I have been given really bad advice such as `introduce competition into your lessons to engage the boys' or `don't worry if the boys' work is a bit untidy, that's just the way it is with boys'. Matt and Mark address myths like this and use the research evidence, alongside their own experience in schools, to break down many of these widely held beliefs, which serve to do nothing else but compound the problem of gender inequality in schools. Furthermore, they challenge us as educators to reflect on our own gender biases which, whilst uncomfortable at times, is the first step to addressing this problem.

The world of education has needed a book like this for a long time. Evidence informed, written by practitioners and not pulling any punches. It gets to the heart of a really serious issue that permeates our education system and should be read by anybody who works in a school.

Shaun Allison

Author, deputy head, and Director of Durrington Research School