From the early 1990s onwards the representations of boyhoods which have been most visible in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the USA have suggested that boys as a group are problematic both to themselves and to the societies in which they live. Images which have been projected from cultural spaces including film, advertising, music, and the popular press produce pictures of danger and conversely, inadequacy. Academic literature, in responding to these claims, has largely become framed by the notion of ‘crisis’, giving priority either to boyhoods which are perceived as problematic or addressing the discourse either to prove or disprove its validity. Far less work has gone into exploring other, more positive aspects of boys’ lives and their attendant optimistic, affirmative images with which boys can engage.

Dr. Michelle Gill, Newcastle University

Making Men: Representations of Boyhoods in Contemporary Young Adult Fictions (2009)