Role
Lecturer Early Childhood Studies
Qualifications & background
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| Background |
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My route to Plymouth University has not been a conventional one, along the way I have gathered many wonderful and unforgetable experiences in the world that new parents inhabit as a midwife and social care with a great orgnaisation called Home-Start. I studied part-time with the Open University with the help of my then small children.
My Phd study used an ethnographic methodology to explore what influences parental participation in two Sure Start Children's Centres. It explored what these new spaces mean, to those who use them, those who work in them and those who walk by them. It used a Foucauldian perspective to explore the small micro-processes of every day interactions within Centres to explore how government operates at a distance.
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Qualifications
2007-2011 PhD Plymouth University, Faculty of Education
2005-2007 Masters modules in Social Research Methods and Ethnography, Open University (both awarded with Distinction, study suspended until completion of my PhD)
2005 BSc (Hons) Social Science and Psychology (First class), Open University
1997 PGDip Health Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University
1989 Registered Midwife
1986 Registered Nurse
Teaching interests
My teaching committments reflect my desire to remain contected to my health and social care professional heritage, whilst at the same time expanding my interest in sociology of childhood and the critiquing of the various perspectives and theoretical positions that are offered in the study of chidlren and childhoods.
EEC108 Working with Colleagues (Module Leader)
EEC111 Studying Children in Context (Module Leader)
EEC106 Patterns of Provision
EEC114 Children's Health and Well-being
EEC208 Becoming a Person
EEC256 Becoming an Individual
EEC357 and FLECS 306 Children and Risk
EEC307 Current Issues
FLECS302 Researching Early Childhood
MEEC521 Masters in Education: Developing Leadership in the Early Years
EYPS liason and support
Research interests
Thesis Title: ‘A children’s what?’ Making sense of Sure Start Children’s Centres: a critical exploration of the influences on participation and non-participation
(Funded by Devon County Council and HEFCE) Supervisors: Dr Norman Gabriel, Dr Julia Morgan and Professor Bill Jordan
My PhD study is an ethnographic exploration of what influences parental particpation in Sure Start Children's Centres. The study takes a wide perspectival lens to analyse everyday micro social-interactions and practices in two Children's Centres in order to gain a deeper understanding of the issues that parents and these new institutions face in encourgaing access.
Conference presentations
2007 Devon County Council Research into Practice Conference, 'It's the little things that matter: an ethnographic study of two Children's Centres'.
2008 International Child and Youth Research Network Conference, Nikosia. 'Children's Centres, improving outcomes for children: the challenge of encouraging participation. Challenging dominant discourses - my first journey into 'troubling' waters'.
2008 Oxford Research Methods Festival Poster Presentation
2009 Invited lecture - E-map Conference, Earls Court London, 'Performance The challenge of encouraging participation: A researcher’s perspective'.
2009 University of Leicester, International Postgraduate Conference, 'Making a difference: the (un)intended consequences of doing research in the ‘real’ world'.
2010 University of Plymouth Methods Conference, 'Exploring the use of qualitative outcome measures in Children’s Centres' with Verity Campball-Barr and Karen Wickett.
2010 Methods Conference, University of Plymouth 'Exploring processes: Creating a storm in a tea cup?'
2011 European Sociological Association Conference, Geneva, 'Turbulence in a Tea Cup: Sure Start Children's Centres governing families at a distance' .
http://imatis.unige.ch/conference/abstractbooks/pdfversion.php?aID=1931
UoP Research group membership
Centre for Culture, Community and Society (CCCS)
Early Childhood and Well-being
