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Family Troubles?
Exploring Changes & Challenges in the Family Lives of Children and Young People
8th and 9th July 2010
London
As the everyday family lives of children and young people come to be increasingly defined as matters of public policy and concern, it is important to raise the question of how we can understand the contested terrain between ‘normal’ family troubles and troubled and troubling families. This inter-disciplinary two day colloquium aims to promote dialogue between researchers addressing mainstream family change and diversity in everyday lives, and those specialising in specific problems which prompt specialist interventions, and to consider the implications for policy makers, service users and practitioners.
Much research on mainstream families incorporates data about how ‘troubles’ feature in the lives of research participants, but this may not appear in the main outputs of such studies. Similarly, applied research on troublesome family issues may incorporate data on how such family members carry on, and ‘normalise’, their everyday lives. For this conference, we invite such researchers to take a fresh look at their data to explore how ‘troubles’ feature in ‘normal’ families, and how the ‘normal’ features in troubled families.
We welcome contributions from those researching across a wide range of different events and issues that constitute family change – such as marriage, divorce, births, deaths, movement in and out of education and employment, disability, illness, intra-national and inter-national migration, domestic abuse, substance mis-use, offending behaviours, ‘good fortune’.
Key questions include:
If change (whether experienced suddenly or incrementally) is a ‘normal’ feature of family lives and the life course, at what point does it become experienced, or perceived, as troublesome, and why?
What similarities and differences are there between different family members’ experiences of the same issue, and between different sources of change?
Can the different events of family change be understood through a common conceptual framework or are some troubling experiences more deeply challenging to those caught up in them and those who seek to support them?
If so, what is it that makes them different, how can we understand the nature of this difference, and how can we best respond?
Confirmed speakers and participants include:
Professor Jill Korbin, Case Western Reserve University
Dr Janet Fink (Open University)
Professor Sir Michael Rutter (University College London)
Professor Rachel Thomson (Open University)
Professor Dame Janet Finch (tbc)
Professor Lynn Jamieson (Edinburgh University)
Dr Penny Mansfield (One Plus One)
Professor Ann Phoenix (Institute of Education)
Professor Andrew Cooper (Tavistock Institute)
Dr Janet Boddy (Institute of Education)
Dr Jacqui Gabb (Open University)
Dr Helen Lucey (University of Bath)
Dr Nicola Yeates (Open University)
Leading into publication of an edited collection, this two day event will seek to work towards new research agenda and new dialogue between researchers and user-groups by:
crossing boundaries between what is often framed as ‘normal’ or ‘problematic’ in the lives of children and young people, paying particular regard to the perspectives of family members themselves of all ages;
creating new inter-disciplinary dialogue across a range of relevant disciplines – including sociology, social policy, social work, psychology, anthropology, history, social geography, education and health studies – to focus on a spectrum of family experiences of change and trouble;
developing innovatory middle range theoretical frameworks to think across life events and processes that might commonly be regarded as ‘troubling’ in families by exploring research on a range of issues, drawing on, interrogating, critiquing, and developing relevant concepts such as transitions, disruptions, identities, attachment, loss, harm, stress, trauma, well-being, risk, resilience, in/dependence and vulnerability;
identifying and clarifying new research agenda, in dialogue with user-groups, to help re-frame how we approach the study of family lives and family troubles in an area of social life currently associated with much public anxiety.
Contributions are invited in a variety of formats and lengths, as conference papers or brief inputs to workshops. While we anticipate that the primary focus of the discussions will be the UK (and its constituent countries), papers that situate discussion within an international context and global framework will be very welcome. Please state in your submission:
what format and length you anticipate for your presentation,
whether or not you would like your contribution to be considered for inclusion for the published outcome from the conference;
the title and a brief abstract for your paper or input;
your main disciplinary orientation and/or professional background.
Some bursaries may be available, and priority will be given to early career researchers, and/or those whose work most closely addresses the key questions under consideration.
Dr Val Gillies Dr Carol-Ann Hooper Dr Jane McCarthy
London South Bank University of York Open University
University
Please send your submissions to [log in to unmask]
Deadline: MONDAY 18TH JANUARY 2010
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