Welcome to our newsletter.

1. Early Intervention: Adverse Childhood Experiences

Querying the evidence for ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) and Early Intervention

In December 2017, the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee launched an inquiry into the evidence-base for early years intervention, with a particular focus on programmes influenced by the concept of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs). CPCS associates and social policy specialists from a number of universities were keen to ensure that the inquiry considered contributions that were more circumspect about the ACE’s approach. They collaborated to produce a submission which set out some grounds on which the claims made about ACEs might be questioned.

After the submission was published by the Committee, it was circulated to fellow academics similarly concerned about the limitations of the ACE’s approach who also provided comment. Co-authors of the submission, Professor Rosalind Edwards and Professor Sue White were subsequently called to give evidence to the Committee.

Watch the evidence session here. 

Find out more, including links to the submission here. 

2. CPCS@kent Summer Term Discussion

This will be our last discussion of this academic year. Professor Frank Furedi and Dr Jennie Bristow will give introductions, about their ‘work-in-progress’ writing projects, which focus on the theme of socialisation, education and youth identity.

Date: Wednesday 20 June

Time: 15.00-17.00

Venue: Grimond Seminar 1, University of Kent

Followed by an end of year drink.

Recommended reading: Jeffrey Arnett, ‘Emerging Adulthood’.

3. Call for Papers: ‘Generations, socialisation and adult identity’

The aim of this BSA Early Career event is to bring together Early Career Researchers and senior academics to discuss contemporary tensions in the socialisation of children. These tensions, such as whether children are growing up ‘too fast’ in an age of social media, or are ‘too sheltered’ in an age of helicopter parenting, have become topics of recent sociological exploration. Building on established research on the blurring of boundaries between home and school, this event aims to understand the implications for our understanding of primary and secondary socialisation.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2018

Further details about the event and to register your place, visit the BSA website. 

For more information or if you have any questions, contact Jennie Bristow. 

4. Other upcoming events

Parenting culture, childhood, and adult-child relations in the contemporary age

Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL, London, WC1E 6BT

Wednesday 23 May 2018, 9.15 – 16.30

‘Parenting Culture’ and ‘Childhood’ are now well-established fields of multi-disciplinary social science scholarship. So far, however, the tensions and resonances between these two bodies of work have not been significantly explored, particularly in global contexts. Taking ‘adult-child relations’ as the locus of this comparison, this symposium, organised by Charlotte Faircloth and Rachel Rosen (based in the Department of Social Science, University College London) brings together novel contributions from scholars working in both of these fields, and who are interested in creating connections between them. The papers at the workshop focus on local and transnational aspects of parent-child relationships and include:

Keynote address

“To be ever present”. Children’s and Parents’ discourses on parenting in Chile today

Ana Vergara del Solar (Diego Portales University, Santiago de Chile)

Respondent: Professor Val Gillies (University of Westminster, London)

Papers

Doing good parenthood as ‘we-ness’

Allan Westerling (Roskilde University, Denmark) Anna Sparrman (Linköping University)

Alternative geographies of childhood: thinking through and beyond child-adult relations

Matej Blazek (Newcastle University), Peter Kraftl (University of Birmingham)

Parenting apps and the disposition of the parent as a pedagogical figure

Stefan Ramaekers (U. Leuven) and Naomi Hodgson (Liverpool Hope University)

State-Parent-Child Relations in the ‘Strong’ State of Singapore: Perspectives of socio-economically disadvantaged families

Charleen Chiong (University of Cambridge)

Accidents Waiting to Happen: Anxious Parents and Vulnerable Children in Turkish Newspapers in the 1980s

Deniz Arzuk, (Linköping University)

“Of course we’ll like it, we’re kids!” Moderation versus Childhood in the United States

Jennifer Patico (Georgia State University)

Parenting in the Playground Heterotopia

Alkistis Pitsikali and Rosie Parnell (Northumbria University)

Please register via the UCL online store.  

There will be a nominal £10 fee to cover lunch and refreshments. We have a limited number of travel bursaries available for non-stipended participants. If you would be interested in this support, please email c.faircloth@ucl.ac.uk by 19 April 2018 with a short description of your research interests and saying why you would like to attend. We are particularly interested in supporting participants whose research is transnational in focus and participants who come from under-represented groups in academia.

Families and Parenting Forum

University of Surrey

Tuesday 26 June 2018, 13.00-18.00

The Families and Parenting Forum brings together an exciting array of research on families, media, communication and contemporary politics of parenthood, consumption, gender and everyday life. CPCS’s Charlotte Faircloth will be giving the opening plenary at this day, which also features a presentation by CPCS associate Vicki Harman. 

The forum will be followed by a wine and nibbles reception. Tickets are free, but seats are capped. More details and booking online.

5. Read and Listen on

Talks

Jan Macvarish, ‘The Risks of pathologising normal family life.’

Books

Tracey Jensen, Parenting the crisis.

Babies Made Us Modern: How Infants Brought America into the Twentieth Century, Janet Golden

Articles

Sunna Símonardóttir and Ingólfur V. Gíslason, ‘When breast is not best: Opposing dominant discourses on breastfeeding’

Max Antony-Newman, ‘Parental involvement of immigrant parents: a meta-synthesis’

Comment

‘‘Killer kids’: why do children make the most magnetic villains?’, with comment by Ellie Lee

Frank Furedi, ‘Stop this moral crusade against circumcision’

‘Adolescence now lasts from 10 to 24’, with comment by Jan Macvarish