Boys and young men are increasingly recognised as needing better support to feel they belong, yet manyexperience isolation, uncertainty about their identity and pressures around mental wellbeing.
A strong sense of belonging can help young people build confidence, resilience and positive relationships. This is especially important for those growing up in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR), where opportunities to feel connected and supported maybe more limited.
This PhD project will explore how taking part in community-run youth, sports and arts or culturalorganisations shapes the experiences of boys and young men aged 13 to 24 from diverse ethnicbackgrounds. It will look closely at how belonging, identity and mental wellbeing develop in thesesettings, and at what the project calls "brotherhood": supportive relationships between peers, built onshared identity, mutual trust and a sense of collective responsibility. The researcher will work alongsidecommunity organisations and youth workers to understand how young people themselves experienceand describe brotherhood in different community settings.
A key focus is understanding what works, for whom and under what circumstances. Community spacescan give young people room to build friendships, develop confidence and explore positive ways ofexpressing what it means to be a man.
The project will examine the mechanisms behind this, and will payparticular attention to young people who have experienced exclusion from one another and from theircommunities, so that the findings reflect a wide range of voices and experiences.This research has the potential to inform local policy, practice and community-based services,responding directly to local priorities around inclusion, belonging, confidence and positive mentalwellbeing. It will also develop a framework to explain how community participation shapes belonging andbrotherhood, helping to guide future collaborative work across LLR that supports mental wellbeing,strengthens communities and expands opportunities for boys and young men.
This project has been co-created with and is supported by researchers from 冈本视频, theUniversity of Leicester and partners at Leicester City Council. The successful candidate for this projectwill be enrolled at 冈本视频.
Project Aims
The project aims to:
- Explore how boys and young men understand and experience belonging,'brotherhood',identity and mental wellbeing in their everyday lives.
- Examine how participation in community-run organisations across youth, sports and arts orcultural settings shapes opportunities for belonging,'brotherhood' and positive mentalwellbeing, including the factors that enable or constrain participation.
- Investigate the social and cultural roles of community spaces in the lives of boys and youngmen and their communities, and how these are shaped by wider socioeconomiccircumstances.
- Develop an explanatory framework for understanding how, for whom and under whatcircumstances community participation contributes to belonging,'brotherhood', identity andpositive mental wellbeing, to inform policy, practice and community development.
Full Supervisory Team
1.Lead Academic Supervisor: Professor Bertha Ochieng (冈本视频)
2.Academic Co-Supervisor: Dr Paul Campbell (University of Leicester)
3.Community Supervisor: Mark Wheatley (Leicester City Council)
Estimated thesis submission: