Welcome to the latest Centre for Parenting Culture Studies (CPCS) newsletter. This goes to those who have attended events organised by CPCS, and others who have expressed an interest in the work of the Centre.
Ellie Lee, Director CPCS E.J.Lee@kent.ac.uk
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CPCS in Print: Read our book Parenting Culture Studies: If you are based in North America you can order the book here Order from Palgrave in the UK here
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Welcome to our newsletter
This is our last newsletter for this academic year, letting you know about events and discussions coming up, and about other research news.
1. Generations and Society
CPCS Associate and Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch University Jennie Bristow, and University of Surrey Research Fellow Helen Kingstone, are convening an interdisciplinary network of academics and Third Sector organisations actively working with ‘generation’, to map how this concept can best be used, and to improve understanding of the relationship between generations, wellbeing, and public policy. The network is developed via a series of sequential workshops.
The third workshop, focusing on intergenerational relationships, took place online on 24 June. This discussed the social and cultural significance of intergenerational relationships, and in what ways they can be supported or weakened by policy initiatives and community projects.
For more information, and to read summaries of the previous two workshops, visit our blog
Contact jennie.bristow@canterbury.ac.uk if you would like to be involved in the network.
Find out more about the generations network here
2. Research and Commentary on/during Lockdown
Charlotte Faircloth, with Katherine Twamley and Humera Iqbal at UCL launched the study ‘FACT-COVID: Families and Community Transition Under Covid’
First Blog piece on very early findings: ‘Social Bubbles: Official Guidance Catching up with Real Life?’
You can hear CPCS Associate Katherine Twamley discussing the project here.
Dr Jennie Bristow and her daughter, Emma Gilland, are working on a short book: The Corona Generation: Coming of age in a crisis. They will be presenting on this at the online conference ‘Rainbows in Our Windows: Childhood in the Time of Corona’, organised by the Warwick University on 11 July 2020. For more information about the conference, and to register, visit the website.
Ellie Lee was interviewed by Brees media following the setting up of the ‘UsforThem’ campaign, about children, parents and schools. Watch on YouTube
Jennie Bristow wrote the article ‘Covid-19 is not a generation war’ and discussed this issue in this podcast. Jennie also discussed children going back to school on Sky News , and in the Daily Mail.
Frank Furedi wrote the comment piece Parents, Overcome Your Fears.
Jan Macvarish wrote the comment piece The Importance of Exercising Judgement
3. Other research news
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies has been published. Edited by Daniel Cook, with Jan Macvarish contributing sections on Parenting, Parenthood, Parenting Studies, Parenting Styles, Parenting Children, & Parenting Advice Literature.
Bristol University Press has made the entire special issue of Families, Relationships and Societies on ‘Childhood, Parenting Culture, and Adult-Child Relations in Global Perspectives’ , edited by Charlotte Faircloth and Rachel Rosen, free to access throughout May and June
Charlotte Faircloth’s Families, Relationships and Societies article ‘When equal partners become unequal parents: couple relationships and intensive parenting culture’ was recently made an ‘Editors’ choice’, and is available online here
New paper ‘The emotional journey of motherhood in migration. The case of Southern European mothers in Norway’ in Migration Studies by CPCS Associate Raquel Herrero-Arias, and co-authors, based on Raquel’s PhD research. (We in CPCS were delighted to welcome Raquel as our first Visiting Doctoral Student over the Autumn term 2019, where she shared her work with us).
Health, Risk and Society have published a virtual special issue based on most read articles, celebrating the journal’s 21st birthday, which includes Ellie Lee’s ‘Living with risk in the age of ‘intensive motherhood’: Maternal identity and infant feeding’ in the selection.
Congratulations to CPCS Associate Sunna Símonardóttir, who has won funding for a post-doctoral project, ‘Fertility intentions and behaviour in Iceland’. Building on previous research on the dominant discourses on motherhood in Iceland. the study will seek to explore how competing discourses of the egalitarian distribution of care work on the one hand and intensive mothering narratives on the other hand, influence and inform decisions on fertility in the Icelandic context.
Congratulations also to Ella Sihovonen on the award of her doctorate, with distinction, from the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences. CPCS’s Dr Jan Macvarish acted as ‘opponent’ at her thesis defence in Helsinki in March 2020. Titled ‘From family policy to parenting support : Parenting-related anxiety in Finnish family support projects’ the thesis is available for download here.
4. Read and Listen on
BBC Radio 4, ‘Analysis’ programme, ‘Modern Parenting’ made by Professor Tina Miller, featuring Dr Jan Macvarish on ‘neuroparenting’
‘A boozy attack on pregnant women’, by Ellie Lee.
‘The cynicism of the breast-is-best brigade’, by Ellie Lee.
Filmed at the Battle of Ideas 2019:
The Battle Over Birth Ellie Lee (Chair), Blythe Pepino, Ann Furedi, Alistair Currie and Ashley Frawley
Health vs choice? The vaccination debate Ellie Lee (Chair), Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, Dr Alberto Giubilini, Emilie Karafillakis and Nancy McDermott