The Fluidity of Aspiration: How might we effectively support young working class males in carving out their futures?

In this Keynote I present a personal narrative from my former educational experiences that were embedded in masculine sporting cultures and low-participation neighbourhoods to plot the fluidity of aspiration. We will stop to examine where educational systems misrecognised our dreams and efforts, or even suppressed them, in ways that detached us from any perceived value in learning. The keynote talk concludes by opening up themes of discussion for the conference along with some tentative recommendations for suitable reforms to policy and practice