1. family and parenting
2. children

February 2015
CSCY Bitesize Newsletter: Issue Number 10
The Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth
In this newsletter:
1) Forthcoming CSCY events March 2015
2) Past events
3) Publications
4) Research Groups
5) Other news
1) Forthcoming CSCY Events - March 2015
i) Wednesday 11th March, 12.00-16.30, Conference Room, ICOSS, 219 Portobello. “Things
children shouldn’t know, childhood and domestic violence workshop” on This workshop is
part of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth’s workshop series, “Things children
shouldn’t know 2014-2016”. The day will begin with lunch followed by the first presentation
at 12.45. The day will end at 16.30 after a panel discussion. This is a joint CSCY and Siirch
(South Yorkshire Institute for Innovation and Research in Child Heath) event. Further details
are available on www.sheffield.ac.uk/cscy and www.siirch.co.uk
ii) Friday 27th March, 1.00-3.00pm, Board Room, ICOSS, 219 Portobello. CSCY Children,
space and place group seminar “Young children’s navigations and negotiations in a museum”
by Dr Elee Kirk. This talk presents some of the findings of Elee's research into young
children’s experiences in a natural history museum, particularly the ways in which they
navigate and negotiate the physical and social space of the museum. Children aged four and
five years on family visits to a museum were given a digital camera, and asked to
photograph their visit, and their pictures were used as the basis for photo-elicitation
interviews. This data, combined with observations of families in the same museum, revealed
aspects of their visit that went beyond the more usual educational discourses about children
in museums. In this talk Elee will focus on the children’s physical movements around the
museum, and the ways in which this is connected to their manoeuvring within the social
space in which they find themselves, in particular relating to issues of safety, independence,
mood and sociability. As usual, after Elee's talk we will have a chance to discuss planned
and future project and events.
2) Past events
27th January 2015 - ‘Child Welfare, Children’s Rights and Family Support: Tensions and
Possibilities’ Workshop. The event provided an opportunity to hear about research and
engage in practitioner oriented workshops about child neglect, children’s rights, child
protection and family support practice. It was organised by the Department of Sociological
Studies and supported by the Research Exchange in Social Sciences and the Centre for the
Study of Childhood and Youth. The keynote presentation was made by Professor Jan
Horwath and was entitled ‘Securing Child Visibility in Cases of Child Neglect’. There was an
opportunity to attend one of four workshops which examined research and practice relating
to:
o Keeping the neglected child in focus in child protection conferences (Helen
Richardson-Foster)
o Lead professional roles and partnership working in intensive family support
and interventions (Harrie Churchill and Robin Sen)
o
o
Social worker or social police? Social work roles and relationships in working
with children and families (Jadwiga Leigh)
Engaging and supporting ‘high risk’ families (Jane Laing)
4th February 2015 – Postgraduate Winter Warmer event. This event sought to enable
students to share their reflections on various aspects of their research which was followed
by discussions. Presentations were given by Saima Eman who focused on “Countering
obstacles and managing transition during my PhD”; Sophie Rutter who spoke about
“Difficulties encountered conducting a naturalistic study”; Nordiana Zakir who focused on
“Ethical encounters during data collection” and Lucy Dearn who centred her presentation on
“Understanding young people’s experiences of live classical music”.
3) Publications
Newman, N. & Oates, C.J. (2014). Parental mediation of marketing communications aimed
at children. International Journal of Advertising 33(3) 579-598.
Verhellen, Y., Oates, C.J., De Pelsmacker, P. & Dens, N. (2014). Children’s responses to
traditional versus hybrid advertising formats: the moderating role of persuasion knowledge.
Journal of Consumer Policy 37 (2) 235-255.
Hackett, A. and Yamada-Rice, D. (2015), Special issue on New directions in Emerging
Literacies research. Early Education Journal.
Hackett, A. ‘Toddlers in Museums; “It’s a comfortable place, we’ve been there so many times,
it just feels like the sort of place you can just run around in really.”’ Journal of Education in
Museums, 35.
4) Research Groups: News
a) The Body, Health and Well-being Group
The body, health and wellbeing group have continued to meet to discuss their research.
These meetings have included an external speaker and have also taken the form of
research project incubators which have led to separate bid specific meetings. Their 2015
activity will centre on a book proposal to Palgrave. For more information about this group
contact Melanie Hall, melanie.hall@sheffield.ac.uk.
b) Visual Research Group
The visual research group has been discussing applying for some network funding to
develop new forms of visual transcription and analysis for research with children and young
people. They have also acquired funding from the Faculty of Social Sciences to develop and
deliver advanced visual research training in the form of a two-day summer school. To find
out more about this group contact Dylan Yamada-Rice, d.yamada-rice@sheffield.ac.uk.
c) Inter-generational research group
The inter-generational research group has held several meetings since the last partnership
board meeting. The group has welcomed some new members, including lecturers, research
staff and postgraduate research students. Interested members are currently meeting to work
on developing a research proposal focused on dementia and children in an ageing society.
The proposal will be an inter-disciplinary, cross-Faculty collaboration.If you want to find out
more about this group contact Jo Britton, n.j.britton@sheffield.ac.uk
d) Children and Families Policy and Practice research group
Since September 2014 this Research Group has met formally. Instead, the focus of the
group has been on developing collaborations between key members of the group and
organising events/producing joint publications. Robin Sen, Harriet Churchill and Helen
Richardson-Foster organised and delivered workshops at an event on January 27th 2015
called ‘Child welfare, children’s rights and family support: Possibilities and Tensions’. The
event involved many practitioners, managers and students (see under past events above).
The co-convenors of the group – Robin and Harriet – are currently considering the next
steps for the group and will consult with CSCY Directors as well as various members before
any decisions are made.
If you want to find out more about this group contact
h.churchill@sheffield.ac.uk or Robin Sen r.n.sen@sheffield.ac.uk.
Harriet
Churchill,
e) Children’s spaces and places research group
The Children’s Spaces and Places research group engages in a range of projects and
activities that focus on the experiential dimensions of children’s engagement with, and in,
spaces and places. Most recently the group has secured funding to work in partnership with
Eureka, the National Children’s Museum, to explore young children’s experiences of their
gallery ‘All About Me’. This project reflects the group’s interest in working with non-academic
partners to inform the development of spaces and places with, and for, children. In addition,
they are in the final stages of a book project entitled ‘Children’s Spatialities: Embodiment,
Emotions and Agency’, which is due to be published later this year. Finally, they continue to
host a series of presentations and seminars - the last was led by Lisa Procter in December
2014 and was entitled ‘Children, Nature and Emotion: Exploring how children’s emotional
experiences of ‘green’ spaces shape their understandings of the natural world’.
If this groups sounds like it would be of interest, please get in touch with Lisa Procter
(l.h.procter@sheffield.ac.uk) or Abi Hackett (a.hackett@sheffield.ac.uk).
f) Global childhoods group
The next Global Childhoods Group will be on 11th March from 2-3.30 pm (Glass Meeting
Room, ICOSS). The session will consist of a presentation by Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
entitled: 'Community Perceptions: As Good a Starting Point as Any in Child Protection
Interventions? The Case of the Physical Punishment of Children in Ghana’.
For further details about this group contact Afua Twum-Danso Imoh, a.twumdanso@sheffield.ac.uk
g) Disabilities studies research group
Dan Goodley, Kirsty Liddiard and Elizabeth Wood are working with colleagues across the
university - including Paul Martin in Sociological Studies - on an emerging new research
area: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/faculty/social-sciences/ihuman
This new interdisciplinary research group extends the work of disability studies at the
University of Sheffield to consider the question: 'What does it mean to be a human being in
the 21st Century?'
For further information about this group contact Dan Goodley, d.goodley@sheffield.ac.uk
h) Infant and Toddler research group
This group aims to bring together centre members who are from a range of different
perspectives and whose research methodology and conceptual framework primarily focus on
attachment based relationships between babies/very young children and their key adults.
The next meeting is scheduled for 3rd March.
For further information about this group contact the co-ordinator, Jools Page
j.m.page@sheffield.ac.uk
5) Other news
1. Harriet Churchill has a short article called 'Turning lives around? The Troubled Families
Programme' in the forthcoming 'In Defense of Welfare: 2nd Report' soon to be published by
the UK Social Policy Association. Further details about this report will be provided soon via
the SPA website http://www.social-policy.org.uk/
2. Harriet Churchill and social work research and teaching colleagues in the Department of
Sociological Studies have recently been awarded a small grant from the University of
Sheffield to develop specialist practice resources with local practitioners and managers
working in intensive family support services delivered by children's social care services.
3. Siirch South Yorkshire Institute for Innovation and Research in Child Health
Siirch, The South Yorkshire Institute for Innovation and Research in Child Health, is a
partnership organisation comprising representatives from multiple disciplines that are
involved in child health research. Siirch was established by a collaborative group from
Sheffield Children’s NHS FT, Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield with
the aim of developing cross-sector partnerships and collaborations to support future
research that aims to improve child health.
Fragmentation in provision has often led to failures in care for children and research for
children may also be fragmented in healthcare research; typically only one element of a care
pathway will be examined, or research is constrained to a single definable clinical population.
Within the natural sciences, arts, humanities and social sciences, there has been a diverse
range of research on child health issues. However, such work may remain inaccessible for
those working within child health services, and its possible benefits for a broader audience
may not currently be fully maximised.
Siirch will provide a forum for developing novel approaches to partnership working with
service users (children/families), enabling a range of academic perspectives on ‘participation’
to contribute to the development of such initiatives. The sharing of diverse research
approaches, perspectives, traditions and priorities is central to Siirch collaborations. Such
knowledge exchange will generate original questions about complex problems, and provide
novel approaches for addressing them.
For further information, please contact the siirch operations team at: info@siirch.co.uk,
website at www.siirch.co.uk or tweet @siirchuk.
4. Youthworks
Young people in care and those who are young carers are at greater risk of online
aggression, hacking, loss of personal details and sexting than their peers. A combination of
factors and behaviours in the lives of young people online were explored by the Cybersurvey
2014 (Autumn) for Suffolk County Council, the fourth year this has been undertaken in the
county. It is hoped that from this evidence we can identify a number of ‘vulnerable groups’
and train practitioners to provide more intensive support where needed. Almost 3000 young
people participated in the Cybersurvey conducted by Adrienne Katz of Youthworks. Reports
will be online soon.
5. Rosie Parnell (University of Sheffield) leads Designing with Children Event
In a 3 year project, Transforming Spatial Design – Encounters with Children, Dr Rosie
Parnell is focusing specifically upon the processes and dynamics of interactions between
architects and children when they design together. Two events were held on 13 January at
the Bristol Architecture Centre and 21 January at the University of Sheffield. The aim was to
share early project findings, highlight the case study partners’ design approaches and invite
questions and discussion from a wide audience of academics, practitioners and those
working in architecture participation.
In Bristol, our case study partners were Marianthi Liapi and Kostis Oungrinis (Transformable
Intelligent Environments Laboratory, Technical University of Crete), and Barbara Kaucky
(erectarchitecture). They discussed their approaches to engaging children in design
processes, within school and other contexts, and provided inspirational examples from their
own practices. A discussion followed with key insights emerging: the concepts of creative
dialogue and togetherness were the umbrella themes enabling a process-focused
exploration of designer-child interactions involving, for example, turn taking and embodied
dialogue.
We saw a great turn out for the Sheffield whole day event. Despite heavy snow, case study
partners Susanne Hoffman (die Baupiloten) travelled from Berlin and Dan Morrish and Emily
Charkin (Building for Families, Wilderness Wood) from Sussex.
Dan Morrish and Emily Charkin presented their interest in exploring the relationship between
radical education and self-build, talking about the importance of making their 60-acre
woodland and its building spaces accessible to children. A public research interview and
dialogue with Dan was followed by child and adult participants joining in Dan’s 1:1 building
workshop using found materials.
A rich and contrasting design and engagement approach was presented by Susanne
Hofmann in her talk and follow up hands-on session. Participants were able to join her in
exploring preferences for spatial atmospheres by creating dreamworld collages. Susanne
also went on to give an inspiring evening presentation in the School, introducing her new
book Architecture is Participation.
The project is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust. All of the presentations and talks are
available to watch, from both events www.designingwithchildren.net Follow on Twitter
@designchildren. Rosie Parnell, Maria Patsarika, Jo Birch, Maša Šorn, School of
Architecture.
6. Dr Lisa Procter, School of Education, University of Sheffield
Lisa Procter has been awarded two funding bids, the details are below.
Around the toilet: Co-creating intersectional understandings of gender, disability and
access
Dr Jenny Slater (Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Lisa Procter (University of Sheffield) and Dr
Emily Cuming (University of Leeds)
AHRC Early Career Researcher funding scheme
While toilets are often thought to be a mundane space, for some, a lack of adequate or
accessible toilet provision is a crucial practical issue on a daily basis. Disabled people, for
example, frequently report that accessible toilets are 'not accessible enough' (there may be
too few, or they may be too small for larger wheelchairs, or not have a hoist or changing
space). Toilets also often present a stark visual and material enactment of a gender binary
(‘the ladies’) in ways that can be problematic for trans, genderqueer, or non-binary people
who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. In recognition of the fact that
the social issue of toilets is about practical access and personal affect, this project uses artsand practice-based approaches to experiment with 'toilet talk' as a method of investigating
issues of 'access' and 'identity' in relation to gender and disability. While the research and
activities will focus around gender and disability, we also seek to consider additional
intersections of identity including race, ethnicity, age, religion and faith. Five research
workshops based around the arts practices of reflective storytelling, making/creating and
performance, will take place between April and September 2015, in collaboration with three
community partners: Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Queer of
the Unknown (a performing arts collective) and Action for Trans* Health. Following these
workshops, ideas and reflections will form part of an Architecture Live Project undertaken by
MA Architecture students at the University of Sheffield, resulting in a number of
installations/provocations. These installations will be displayed in public spaces in
Manchester with the intention of stimulating city users to reflect on issues of access and
identity in social spaces. The activities and installations will be captured in innovative visual
and material forms that will be displayed at an end of project event targeting urban planners,
architects and other city professionals.
Sounds of Childhood: Exploring young children’s sound perceptions to inform
architecture and urban design
Dr Lisa Procter (School of Education), Professor Jian Kang (School of Architecture) and Dr
Abigail Hackett (Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth)
Impact, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange funding scheme, University of Sheffield
This project will bring together Doncaster Civic Trust, a charity dedicated to conserving and
improving the town’s built environment, and academics bridging Early Years Education,
Architectural Acoustics and the Sociology of Childhood in order to co-design and produce a
Soundscapes Toolkit informed by the meanings that young children attach to sounds within
different indoor and outdoor environments. The Toolkit will be an educational resource that
will enable early years practitioners to work with young children to explore intersections
between sounds, emotions and their sense of belonging across different contexts including
the home, nursery/school, playgrounds and parks. This is important because it aligns with
the Trust’s agenda to develop children’s understanding of how they are affected by the built
environment at an early age in order to enable them to participate in architectural design
processes in the future and thus contribute to making better environments for themselves
and others. Of key importance to this agenda is to educate children about noise issues. In
addition to allowing young children to explore these issues, the toolkit will facilitate their
multi-sensory exploration of the environment, which is deemed by many to be vital to
children’s learning and development. The Toolkit will be informed by collaborative research
activities with young children to examine how different methods allow them to investigate
how sounds affect how comfortable they feel in different spaces. The findings from these
activities will reveal how early years practitioners could use a toolkit (made up of equipment,
resources, activity guides) to enhance young children’s understandings of sounds and
environments. The project would also generate new knowledge about what sounds children
like and dislike and why, and will lead to a follow-on ESRC project working alongside other
Civic Trusts and the Noise Abatement Society, which works to promote ways to combat
antisocial noise, to develop design recommendations and guidelines based on research
evidence.
7. Caroline Oates, Management School, University of Sheffield
The Management School is advertising 28 projects for potential PhDs - at least one of them
might be of interest to potential PhD students in the childhoods/family area.
Deadline is 10th April for applications. The link is as
follows:http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/management/study/researchdegrees/scholarships2/creims
#3 which will take you to the projects involved in the Marketing Cluster, including Caroline
Oates; project entitled: ''Sustainability education in primary schools in the United Kingdom
and the possibility of reverse eco-socialisation''
8 Eureka! Museum Project
The project will use ethnographic and participatory methods to explore how young children
take messages about health and their bodies from a Eureka! exhibition called 'All About Me'.
The project will also be collaborative/coproduced in that staff from Eureka will work
alongside university researchers to collect and analyse the data.
This exciting project builds on several CSCY interests, including visual-sensory research
methods, children's experiences of place and children's perspectives of health and wellbeing.
9. Kindergarten Safari –
This exciting inter disciplinary project sees CSCY members Abi Hackett (Education) and
Pete Dodd (Epidemiology) working with artist Rachael Hand to think about children's
movement in playgroups and methodological approaches to understand and record this
movement better.
10. Collaborative Ethnography web resource
CSCY member Abi Hackett has secured funding from the Methodological Innovation Fund to
develop a web resource to support students and early career researchers to work with
communities. The funding will enable the creation of the web resource and a workshop to
consult on the contents of the website with community research participants.
11. A Giant Bone –
CSCY members are working in partnership with colleagues from Oncology and Anatomy,
and with community organizations Ignite Imaginations and Little Sheffield to create an artistic
visualization of a bone. We will then tour the sculpture at a number of community events, as
part of an investigation of how young children might use art work inspired by scientific
knowledge to make sense of their own bodies.
12. Yorkshire African Studies Conference
CSCY member, Afua Twum-Danso Imoh, in conjunction with Thomas Goodfellow (Town and
Regional Planning) is organising the annual Yorkshire African Studies Network Conference
on 19th May at the University of Sheffield. The theme for this year’s conference is Family,
Community and Livelihoods: Perspectives from Africa. The abstract for the conference is
below:
Recent years have seen impressive levels of economic growth in many parts of Africa, with a
new discourse of ‘AfricaRising’ coming to displace the widespread pessimism of the late
twentieth century. 2015 is also the year in which countries across the continent will be
scrutinised regarding their achievements or failures in relation to the ‘Milliennium
Development Goals’. In this one-day conference, we seek to go beyond statistics and
national indicators to understand contemporary African societies in rich detail and at the
local level. In particular, the conference will explore community and neighbourhood
dynamics, family relations, parent-child relations, intergenerational relations, child rearing
practices, work opportunities and livelihood choices, and how these are evolving in the
context of changing socio-economic and political conditions. This agenda speaks to a wide
range of contemporary concerns prevalent across much of Africa, including (but not limited
to) the following: job creation and unemployment, fertility rates and demographic change,
‘youth bulges’, education, gender relations, children’s rights, the changing nature of family
relations, labour relations, community participation, violence and crime, and the need for
improved systems for urban and neighbourhood planning.
We welcome applications from PhD students, researchers and academics focusing on the
above issues in any part of the African continent from a wide range of disciplinary
backgrounds: Sociology, Anthropology, Urban Studies and Planning, Geography, History,
Politics, Social Policy, Economics, amongst others. Please submit 300-word abstracts for
papers to be presented at the conference to Dr Afua Twum-Danso Imoh (a.twumdanso@sheffield.ac.uk) by 31st March 2015. We will let you know as soon as possible after
the deadline whether your paper proposal has been accepted.
This call for papers is open to all academics, researchers and postgraduate students (PGT
or PGR)–whether they are based in Yorkshire or elsewhere .
We will be able to support a small number of Yorkshire-based PhD students who wish
to attend the conference and present papers.
Times and schedules will be confirmed in due course.
13. Diary date: 8th June 2015 – Children and the digital seminar
The above seminar will be held in ICOSS, 219 Portobello. Further details will be available
on our website shortly.
14. 15th – 16th July 2015 – Postgraduate Summer School
This exciting 2 day event for postgraduates will be held in the Conference Room, ICOSS,
219 Portobello. The programme and details of how to book for this event will also be on our
website in March.
Written any publications? Attended any conferences/workshops? Organising an
event? Conducted any training? Embarking on a new research project? Please share
your news with us.
Provide Dawn Lessels with the relevant details by the end of April Email
d.j.lessels@sheffield.ac.uk.
Please also remember to check our website www.sheffield.ac.uk/cscy on a regular basis for
more detailed information about past and forthcoming events. You can also find details
about CSCY on our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/CSCY.Sheffield and on
Twitter www.twitter.com/CSCYshefuni.