Dear All,
We'd like to let you know about a one-day seminar that is taking place at The Open University, Milton Keynes on Monday January 11th 2010, exploring new directions in research on youth and the maternal. Places are limited and there is a great deal of interest in the event. We would appreciate it if you could confirm attendance by Wednesday 23rd December. Please RSVP to Katy Gagg ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and contact Ruth Ponsford ([log in to unmask]) or Naomi Rudoe ([log in to unmask]) with any other queries. Further details about the seminar focus and an outline programme are provided below.
Mary Jane Kehily, Ruth Ponsford, Naomi Rudoe and Rachel Thomson
Youth and the Maternal: New Research Directions
This one-day seminar draws together recent research in the field of young motherhood. Teenage pregnancy and motherhood are sites of intense policy, sociological, media and public interest, and the stigmatised figure of the teenage mother plays a role in the discourse of ‘broken Britain’. Since the New Labour government introduced its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in 1999, with aims to halve the rate of teenage conceptions and reduce social exclusion by teenage parents’ increased participation in education, controversy has continued over the most appropriate ways of tackling the issue. Recent sociological research seeks to challenge established negative representations of young mothers, and to uncover what can be learned from young mothers themselves, through a range of empirical studies that engage with the issues from a critical, qualitative perspective.
The seminar’s keynote speaker is Wendy Luttrell, Professor of Urban Education at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. Professor Luttrell is a leading authority on how urban American schooling shapes and reinforces beliefs about race, identity, knowledge, and power. Her 2003 book Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds: Gender, Race and the Schooling of Pregnant Teens (Routledge) was recognised by the American Sociological Association with an Outstanding Achievement in Scholarship Award for its analysis of how pregnant women and young mothers are educated and the stigmas they face. The seminar brings together Wendy Luttrell with leading and early career scholars in the UK (Dr Maud Perrier, Bristol University; Dr Ofra Koffman, Goldsmiths, University of London; and Professor Rachel Thomson, Dr Mary Jane Kehily, Ruth Ponsford and Naomi Rudoe, The Open University) in presentation of new research that examines the themes of young motherhood in relation to education, consumption, representation and policy. This event is a collaboration between the HSC Children and Young People Research Group, the Families and Relationships Research Group and is supported by the Children and Young People Research Forum.
Programme Outline
10:30 – 10:40 Registration and refreshments
10:40 – 10:45 Welcome and introduction to programme. Professor Rachel Thomson, The Open University
10:45 – 12.30 Paper Session One.
Professor Wendy Luttrell, City University of New York. Where Inequality Lives in the Body: Teenage Pregnancy, Young Motherhood and Schooling.
Naomi Rudoe, The Open University. Young mothers and the processes of educational inclusion and exclusion
Discussant: John Oates, The Open University
12:30 – 13.15 Lunch
13:15 – 14:45 Paper Session Two.
Dr Mary Jane Kehily, The Open University. Pregnancy magazines, consumption and the encoding of the maternal subject
Ruth Ponsford, The Open University. Young motherhood, consumer markets and the making of the maternal self
14:45 – 15:00 Break
15:00 – 16:30 Paper Session Three.
Dr Ofra Koffman, Goldsmiths, University of London. Fertile Bodies, Immature Minds?: The Role of Psychology in the Problematization of Teenage Parenthood
Dr Maud Perrier, Bristol University. Young mothers' maternal moralities: intersections of class and
age
16.30 – 17:00
Discussion and closing
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The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
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