Call For Papers: RGS-IBG Geographies of Children, Youth & Families
Research Group

“Understanding Transitions Through Methodological Innovations” - PhDs and
Early Career Researchers Workshop

Friday 25 February 2011, University of Leicester

The theme of ‘transition’ has emerged as significant in a great many
subfields of research with children, young people and families.  While,
superficially, the physical and emotional development from child to
adolescent to adult helps to explain this preoccupation, there are many
other senses in which the idea of transition has resonance in people’s
lives.  For youth, this might involve the move towards closer affiliation
with particular subcultures and away from families, for example, or the
choices that necessarily have to be made about ones future regarding
education or employment – choices that, at present, seem increasingly
loaded with anxieties.  The notion of transition may be closely associated
with adolescence but there are equally many ways in which young children
and families experience significant physical relocation and/or personal
emotional shifts, from the physical experiences of migration, resettlement
and self-incorporation within a new socio-cultural context to the
emotional redefinitions of self that can result from embracing parenthood
for the first time.

In this day workshop we aim to consider some of the methodological
techniques and innovations that are being applied to transitions research
with children, youth and families.  We invite papers that offer insights
into and experiences of a range of methodological approaches, including
the innovative and still-evolving as well as more familiar techniques that
may have been combined or employed in new ways.  Experiences of managing
the practical and ethical implications of some of these approaches might
also be included.  While the focus of the workshop is predominantly
methodological, making visible the links between methodological choices
and broader empirical and conceptual aims remains a key concern.  We leave
the balance between these to the discretion of the author.

Papers will be combined into dedicated paper sessions alongside methods
workshops and a discussion panel.

Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be emailed to
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We also welcome interest from those who do not wish to present but would
like to attend the workshop.  In the interests of ensuring productive
discussion, places for this workshop are limited to 30 and these will be
allocated on a first come, first served basis.  Please direct email
registrations to [log in to unmask]  Limited travel bursaries will be
available for those without research council or other sponsor support.  If
you would like to be considered for a travel bursary, please include this
request in your registration email.



Rebecca Collins, PhD candidate
Department of Geography
University College London
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