+34The Shona Project introduces MARK, a pilot programme for boys aged 12 to 19, designed to create safe spaces for open discussions about school, appearance, relationships, and the pressure to remain stoic, addressing the urgent need for conversations around modern masculinity.
Teenage boys are navigating real pressure around school, success, appearance, relationships and masculinity, often while feeling an expectation to stay ‘strong’. MARK, a new programme for boys aged 12 to 19, gives them somewhere to talk about it.
For the past decade, The Shona Project has worked with tens of thousands of girls across Ireland, through school workshops, events like Shine Festival and campaigns. Now, those findings have helped prompt something new.is a pilot programme specifically for boys aged 12 to 19.
Affiliated with The Shona Project and delivered by male facilitators in schools, it aims to create spaces where boys can talk openly about their experiences, values and the pressures they are navigating before those difficulties become crises. Dónal Kearney is programme director for MARK.
“From a very young age, boys learn that stoicism is the safest approach to dealing with their emotions,” he explains. “Whether we want to admit it or not, this is compounded by adults’ expectations of boys, parents, teachers, coaches. ”There has been enormous, and necessary progress in the conversations we have with girls about self-esteem, body image, ambition, relationships, consent and mental health.
But there is another conversation we urgently need to have: what are we teaching boys about who they are allowed to be? Today’s teenage boys are growing up in a world their parents didn’t experience. Their ideas about masculinity, success, sex, relationships and status aren’t formed only around kitchen tables, in classrooms or among friends. They are being shaped online too, often by algorithms capable of serving up increasingly alarming ideas of what it means to be a man.
When boys are asked in MARK workshops where the pressure to conform comes from, they name friends, social media, sport, family and school. Some told the MARK team they would rather hide parts of themselves than risk being targeted. One boy described his father as someone who “never shows emotion…because it’s the man you are”. Another said boys hide their feelings because “there will be people laughing if they ever express their emotions”.
The answer cannot simply be to tell boys what not to become. They need somewhere to explore what theyRecent research completed by The Shona Project shows that at 12 to 15, 34% of boys are thriving, more than double the rate for girls of the same age. But as boys move through adolescence, things change. The proportion classified as struggling rises from 24% among 12 to 15-year-old boys to 38% among those aged 16 to 19.
School and exams, anxiety about the future, money worries and stress are among the most prominent pressures. At the same time, Dónal says boys’ sense of belonging begins to fall away, at school, in their communities and even online.particularly stayed with him: “Boys aren’t doing better than girls. They’re just better at pretending they are. ” “What the research shows us is that boys don’t usually express how they’re feeling with any real nuance,” says Dónal.
“Rather than seeking emotional support, the findings suggest that boys respond to pressure in three ways: through gaming and social media; through adopting a front of humour and bravado; or they drop their passions and quit prior hobbies like sport. ” As one 15-year-old told researchers: “People try to act confident, but on the inside they’re not feeling how they want to feel. ” This isn’t really a story about girls versus boys.
It’s a story about young people growing up under enormous pressure, and the different ways that pressure can show itself. Looking for answersBut Dónal believes it is important to understand why boys may be drawn to them in the first place. A growing amount of online content links men’s value with dominance, money and “alpha” status, tapping into fear, insecurity and what young men believe they lack.
Yet when MARK speaks to older boys, what they say they want is strikingly practical: work experience, confidence and some sense of how to be ready for adulthood. There are already encouraging signs. After MARK’s pilot, 52% of boys said they thought differently about social media and influencers. If you are a 14-year-old boy walking into a MARK workshop, “You won’t be lectured,” says Dónal.
“Nobody will make you share anything personal. ” The 90-minute sessions are active and built around open discussion. Boys map out the pressures facing them and explore the difference between expectations and values. The aim is not therapy, nor is it to tell teenage boys how to behave.
“What boys need is non-judgemental spaces to express themselves. Not a lecture, not therapy, and not to be left alone either. Just protected space to be themselves. ”Growing up in Down in the early 1990s, GAA was a huge part of his identity.
He loved football and dreamed of being like his successful older brother. But he also loved music and drama, something he says many of his teammates didn’t respect.
“The thing I’d built my whole life towards was gone. As silly as it sounds, my dream was crushed. ”“I still had the parts of me who could sing, perform and create. All was not lost.
” He credits the adults around him with nurturing those different parts of his identity, and that experience now sits at the heart of what he wants MARK to offer other boys.
“I want every teenage boy to have the opportunity to develop all the positive parts of himself, whatever they may be. ” MARK is still at an early stage, and it is too soon to know its long-term impact. But 72% of participants in the pilot said they left with a better understanding of the pressures facing boys, while 52% said they thought differently about social media.
Ultimately, MARK wants boys to question the messages they receive, recognise what they are feeling and feel confident enough to decide for themselves what kind of men they want to become.
MARK Programme The Shona Project Teenage Boys Masculinity Mental Health
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