Research Groups
CENTRE FOR CULTURAL STUDIES OF CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD
led by Professor
Liz Jones
As a centre we share a common desire for children to have a better, more just and equitable society whilst simultaneously recognising that the values, assumptions and understandings that are brought to notions of 'the child' and additionally to terms such as 'justice' etc are extremely problematic. It is for this reason that we share a commitment to studying and problematising conceptualisations of 'the child' and 'childhood'.
The centre acts as a fulcrum for the activities that occupy us including teaching, researching, writing, evaluating and learning. In all of these activities we are committed to moving beyond current perceptions and understandings in relation to young people where we can contemplate/imagine what might be some of the other (as yet unthought) possibilities.
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Images taken from the film* ‘Becoming a Problem: Young children and behaviour’ based on research supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, UK, © 2011 |
| Our efforts to reconsider not only what is 'right' or 'best' for the young child and her family are assisted and challenged by a number of methodological frames including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory and critical realism. Such approaches have the capacity to both unsettle our familiar and normative understandings as well call attention to the political interests that are embedded when certain forms of knowledge that are concerned with young people are favoured over others. |
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Images taken from the project ‘The Secret Life of Objects: an artist residency in an early years classroom’ based on research supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, © 2010
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| The Centre has a distinguished track record for securing funding so as to pursue innovative research projects. Recent and current initiatives includes: investigations into fatherhood; examining why certain children develop negative reputations in the earliest years of schooling; exploring what sorts of learning does and potentially could occur when schools work in close conjunction with museums; analysing factors that appear to prevent certain families from accessing services; evaluating current childcare services in prisons. Funding sources for such projects include: the Economic and Social Research Council; the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation; Sure Start; the Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS); the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCFS); the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
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| Dissemination of Centre activities occurs through publications, conferences and representation on advisory boards. |
