🧵Building a future for Young Men in the Construction Industry: A Thread for Teachers🧵
Content: suicide
You may already be aware that men are three times more likely than women to die by suicide. But...
...did you know that men in the Construction industry are ‘at some of the highest risk of suicide in the country, at 3.7 times higher than the national average’.
It's true. Look:
matesinmind.org/news/mental-he…
Astonishingly, this report, found that, in 2019, before the COVID pandemic, 26% of construction workers thought about taking their own lives:
ciob.org/media-centre/n…
Websites dedicated to tackling this problem will use time and financial pressures, time away from loved ones, long hours, and a lack of HR support as an explanation for the high suicide rate in construction. Whilst these are undoubtedly true, hypermasculinity also plays a part.
As one study notes, in the world of construction, 'Rhetorics about working hard, drinking hard, fighting hard, and f*cking hard [are] a dominant scaffold that underpinned...culture'
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.…
In a highly competitive industry where physical strength and technical skill have most value, vulnerability is not something men in construction are keen to display quickly...
What’s particularly worrying – and what should be of particular concern for teachers of young men going into apprenticeship positions in the construction industry – is that this trend of poor male mental health in the industry, starts early.
Nearly a THIRD of young apprenticeships have had suicidal thoughts in the previous year. What’s more, the majority of apprentices in the industry knew someone else who has died by suicide.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Of these apprentices, 89.8% were male, and also more likely to have experienced work-place bullying and engage in substance abuse through drugs or alcohol.
I think about things like this in the context of education - specifically, in the context of secondary schools
There is lots and lots and lots of great work out there by charities and educationalists, who are tackling mental health and suicide head on.
But I want to invite you to consider a cultural change...
In a poll that at last count had 801 responses, 94% of teachers say they're more qualified to give advice on going to university, as opposed to going into the construction industry, when given the choice.
Unsurprising. Most teachers have been to university and not onto sites.
In a completely separate poll of 1414 respondents (at last count) 65% of teachers identified as middle class.
As I said in Boys Don't Try? I think that as a profession we are class-biased.
One of the stark ways the profession's class bias manifests itself, is in our relentless focus on University attendance as a measure of success.
To me, this is hugely problematic.
As I said in BDT?, 'In relentlessly focusing on exam success, and the later university attendance that comes as a result of this success, schools risk alienating' the section of the student body for whom university attendance isn't an option.
It could be the case that our students who want to get a trade, and have no desire to attend University, become passive participants in their own education, desperate to learn but on the outside, looking in, as the teacher at the front of the assembly hall expounds...
...on the benefits of a university education that all should aim for.
Schools need to move from being university-focused to people-focused. The sole aim of these schools isn't to produce graduates, but to produce curious, empathic, and kind people...
...Curious, empathic, and kind people with the knowledge that enables them to take opportunities - whether it's going to university or working with Dad as a bricklayer.
What does this have to do with suicide in the construction industry?
Well, it's about teaching ALL kids, regardless of what they want to do with their lives, that education is important and that they are valued. That they can be part of a 'thing'.
It's about telling those non-Uni kids - those who might want to get a trade - 'You belong here...'
...'You are not counter-culture. You are not existing on the margins, and rotting here until the world of hard hats and bricks takes you away. You belong here, NOW. This is what belonging feels like. You deserve this. This is the very least you should feel.'
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