Advancing the flourishing of young men in Chicago and beyond requires listening, collaboration, and investment in real pathways to opportunity
“Inside the Manosphere,” a Louis Theroux documentary released earlier this year, sparked a lot of high-profile discussions about the potentially dangerous effects of extreme online spaces and influencers on young men. These responses to Theroux’s documentary, though, along with many other recent commentaries dealing with what is at times called the “crisis of masculinity,” often include more high-level commentary than they do information about what is really happening with young men.
Pieces that provide a constructive glimpse into the real lives, communities, and support systems of men and boys across the country remain harder to find. But if we actually want to address some of the issues that boys and men do face today—from low literacy rates and broader educational gaps to challenges with work and health—we need more of the latter, grounded approach.
Thankfully, there is movement in that direction. The recent “Nobody to Call” report offers a valuable example, and I hope it can grow and continue. My own recent report, published by the Center for Public Justice, represents a small attempt to keep moving in that direction. In the process of conducting research for the report, I spoke this past spring with practitioners working with young men in Chicago, especially Black and Brown young men, to better understand their work and how it could best be furthered.
Importantly, while often stereotyped otherwise, young men in Chicago are not the problem; rather, they are the solution. Young men must be seen and acknowledged for who they really are and all that they have to offer. As Will Chatman, Program Director at the youth organization Young Men’s Educational Network (YMEN) and himself one of the original participants in the program, said, “we have to empower youth to understand that they are the solution to the problems in the community.”
And when we do this, we might actually be able to see them for who they are. Damien Howard, a board member with Brilliance and Excellence, a local organization based in Chicago focused on supporting young men of color, said that “when we give young people an opportunity to articulate what their narrative and what their story is, and find a way to not be driven and led by stereotypes, you’re going to see brilliance in just about any young person from the South Side, from the West Side that you talk to, that’s a Black or Brown boy specifically.”
In Chicago there is a lot of this kind of work being done by people like Chatman and Howard, and it has continued for years—but too many people are not aware of it. Coming out of a semester living on the South Side of Chicago, I was curious to find out more about how the insight and expertise of local practitioners could be put into conversation with a growing national policy conversation about boys and men, evident in actions in states like Virginia, California, Maryland, Utah, and cities like Birmingham, Alabama.
Needless to say, I learned a lot. No two conversations were alike, but a few common themes stood out.
First, as I have mentioned, there is a need to see young men as complex, unique human beings and acknowledge both their strengths and the challenges they face. Many of the young men with whom practitioners work in Chicago are “resilient,” “loyal,” and “self-reflective,” as various practitioners told me. But many of these young men have also faced significant challenges—educational, economic, or otherwise—which often spring out of Chicago’s long and complicated history of segregation and its effects, which persist to this day. Chicago is still one of the most segregated major cities in the U.S. Coming out of these historically shaped contexts, young men need to be seen and acknowledged as human beings, but they also need guidance and support to live into their strengths and mature well.
This need leads to the work that so many practitioners are doing, and the second common theme I encountered: collaborative approaches to supporting young men. Many organizations in Chicago are already working together to foster robust and sustainable support systems for young men. These systems aim to ensure that young men have access to safe, violence-free spaces, trusted mentors, networks of human capital, and more. In the process, practitioners are pioneering more open relationships with local schools and utilizing citywide partnerships as they tirelessly work to advance the flourishing of young men. Many are also calling for other local institutions, like faith communities, to thoughtfully join in such work. Mario Vega, Director of Mentoring at the nonprofit New Life Centers, said that churches need to be more “responsive” and active in their communities.
Third, local and state government have a crucial role to play in supporting the development of the sustainable and equitable social infrastructure these boys and young men need. This infrastructure would enable things like the coordination of community violence intervention (CVI) strategies and the better distribution of other crucial resources like mentoring programs.
A focus of this sort of collaboration would be opening up pathways toward meaningful educational opportunities and gainful employment. This involves, as Chatman said, helping “young men to see that they have more opportunities than they physically can see.” It also means seriously investing in those opportunities to offer young men real chances for educational and career advancement and economic security.
While the people with whom I spoke are firmly focused on their local context, their work and insight provide a valuable example for the rest of the country. And it is not just young men who stand to benefit. Promoting work with boys and men should not be seen as taking away from efforts to support women and girls.
Rather, as I write in my report, “practitioners in Chicago are convinced that their efforts with youth, especially young men, are a key part of helping their broader communities flourish… The future needs these young men to have visible, socially responsible roles in society. This is the essence of the work that is being done in Chicago, and it is what we must work toward across the country.”
Supporting boys and young men—in Chicago and beyond—requires sustained local collaboration and engagement, a commitment to look beyond the noise of the news in order to listen to and see young men in all their complexity, and real investment in the lives of young men, helping them grow into responsible societal roles with genuine pathways to opportunity. If we can all accept our shared responsibility in this area, we will be taking a meaningful step toward helping our communities flourish.
For a fuller account of these conversations and their policy implications, you can read the report, “‘Doing Better By Our Boys’: Lessons from Chicago to Advance the Flourishing of Boys and Young Men,” available here.
Jonathan Porteous is a 2026 Hatfield Prize recipient. He is a student at Wheaton College, IL, majoring in cultural anthropology and urban studies and pursuing a certificate in Human Needs and Global Resources (HNGR). Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, he mostly grew up near Boston, MA, rural New Jersey, and southern Florida. He followed a vocational high school track and spent a few wonderful and formative years working as an equine professional in high-performance sport. He stepped back from this work for a time of discernment and travel, spending time at places like L’Abri Fellowship in England, which eventually led him to college. He is interested in the development and function of educational ecosystems and their formational effects, and hopes to pursue graduate studies related to these topics. Jonathan is an alumnus of Wheaton in Chicago, an experiential urban studies program, and was the recipient of the 2025 Wheaton College Global Scholar Award.
Brian Howell, Ph.D. is 2026 Hatfield Prize recipient and former Professor of Anthropology at Wheaton College (IL). He is the author of several books, including Short Term Mission: An Ethnography of Christian Travel Narrative and Experience (IVPAcademic, 2012) and Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A Christian Perspective (with co-author Jenell Paris, [Baker Academic 2019]). He has numerous articles and book chapters on issues such as ethnographic perspective and theory, theology and anthropology, and race in the United States. In addition, he regularly teaches on topics of gender and masculinity, travel and tourism, and global indigneity. For the past four years he has studied improv and now regularly teaches and coaches at Westside Improv Studio in Chicagoland. He is married to Marissa Sabio, and has three children, Hannah, Sam and Ben.
Graphic by Center for Public Justice
