The work of the Centre is co-ordinated by Ellie Lee (University of Kent), Jennie Bristow (Canterbury Christ Church University) and Charlotte Faircloth (University College London)

Here’s some short films about us and our research

Modern Motherhood, with Charlotte

The Folly of ‘Abolish the Family’ and The impact of Lockdown on Children with Ellie 

How Should We Define a Generation?, with Jennie

Watch more here 

Ellie Lee, Director 

Ellie Lee is Professor of Family and Parenting Research at the University of Kent and Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies. She is the co-author of Parenting Culture Studies (written with Charlotte Faircloth, Jennie Bristow and Jan Macvarish), published by Palgrave in 2014. Ellie researches, publishes and teaches in the areas of the sociology of reproduction, of health, and of the family. Her research and teaching draws on constructionist theories of social problems and sociological concepts such as risk consciousness and medicalisation to analyse the evolution of family policy and health policy. This work explores why everyday issues, for example, women having abortions or how mothers feed their babies, turn into major preoccupations for policy makers and become heated topics of wider public debate. With others at the University of Kent, she set up the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies in 2010. Ellie is also an advisor to the Institute of Ideas.

Jennie Bristow

Jennie Bristow is Reader in Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, and her research focuses on generations, education, and parenting culture. Her books include: The Corona Generation: Coming of age in a crisis (with Emma Gilland, 2020); Generational Encounters with Higher Education: The academic-student relationship and the University experience (with Sarah Cant and Anwesa Chatterjee, 2020); Stop Mugging Grandma: The ‘generation wars’ and why Boomer Blaming won’t solve anything (2019); The Sociology of Generations: New directions and challenges (2016); Baby Boomers and Generational Conflict (2015); Licensed to Hug (with Frank Furedi, 2010, 2008) and Standing up to Supernanny (2009). Jennie is co-convenor of the interdisciplinary Generations Network, which seeks to engage academics and others working with the concept of generation in discussion about the meaning of this concept and how it can better be used in policy-making and media debates. Her media commentaries and talks are available on her website.

Charlotte Faircloth

Dr Charlotte Faircloth is an Associate Professor in the UCL Social Research Institute, and a Visiting Scholar and founding member of CPCS. She completed her PhD at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge,  exploring women’s experiences of attachment parenting and ‘full-term’ breastfeeding in London and Paris. She was Mildred Blaxter post-doctoral research fellow with the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, during which she completed her book ‘Militant Lactivism? Attachment parenting and intensive motherhood in the UK and France‘, published by Berghahn Books. She is interested cultures of parenthood; notions of body, gender and equality in care-giving and its implication for other relationships; and more broadly in knowledge claims around optimal forms of care. Whilst at Kent she was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow working on a project entitled ‘Parenting: Gender, Intimacy and Equality’. As well as editing several journal special issues, she  co-edited the volumes ‘Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating ideologies of kinship, self and politics‘ and Feeding Children Inside and Outside the Home: Critical Perspectives. Her latest monograph Couples’ Transitions to Parenthood: Gender, Intimacy and Equality was published in 2021. She is also co-author of ‘Parenting Culture Studies‘. She is currently part of the FACT-Covid project, led by UCL and serves on the Editorial Board of Families, Relationships and Societies led by Esther Dermott.