Objects of conflict: (re) configuring early childhood experiences of gender in the preschool classroom

This qualitative research paper discusses how the material environment of preschool classrooms contributes to early childhood experiences of gender. It applies poststructuralist and posthumanist concepts – primarily Barad’s agential-realism – to analyse ethnographic data extracts drawn from the author’s semi-longitudinal study in a UK nursery. This data focuses on two specific areas of the classroom, the ‘home corner’ and the ‘small world’, and the paper argues that these areas and the objects contained within them can support or challenge/queer gender roles depending on temporal material-discursive conditions. It concludes with specific thinking points for practitioners, arguing that applying these theoretical concepts to explore gender in the early years produces interesting perspectives on how rigid, binary gender roles can be challenged effectively in non-discursive ways within classrooms

Young carers speak out! Final Report

This report considers the opinions and experiences of children and young people identified as ‘young carers’ in the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan regions of South Wales as they relate to the main aims of the Carers Strategies (Wales) Measure 2010

Young carers speak out! Final Report

This report considers the opinions and experiences of children and young people identified as ‘young carers’ in the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan regions of South Wales as they relate to the main aims of the Carers Strategies (Wales) Measure 2010

Becoming gendered bodies: a posthuman analysis of how gender is produced in an early childhood classroom

In this thesis I explore how gender features in the experiences of nursery age children in South Wales, using a new feminist materialist theoretical framework to inform an analysis that moves away from the binary separation of the social and material spheres. Drawing on a year of ethnographic data produced through participant observation in a state school nursery located in a deprived suburban area, I examine small ‘moments of emergence’ where gender is produced within the spaces and relationships of the nursery. I take a posthumanist stance to these emergences, where I do not locate the children themselves as agential producers of gender, but instead trace how human and non-human bodies and discourses work through space and time to delineate subjects and objects in gendering ways. Through doing so I shift focus from a purely social understanding of how gender roles are transferred to young children and instead encourage a holistic view of how environments, matter, and temporality combine with discourse through multiple and complex pathways to create continuous and flexible (re)iterations of gender emergence. I argue that it is only when we appreciate the complexity of these emergences that we can seek to positively impact children’s gender experiences in effective ways

Launching the CUBE: a restorative approach to a co-produced community centre

CUBE is a new multi-agency family support community-based service in one Welsh local authority area. CUBE delivers an evidenced-based, co-productive intensive family support service to and for the community it serves. The nature of the services offered were identified by a lengthy consultation with the community that indicated what they wanted: • A place to help families in need or affected by isolation or loneliness • A place where support is under one roof, rather family members using different services • Activities for community members of all ages run in day and evenings • A place offering support / information or just a coffee that runs beyond working hours • A place where everyone can feel a part of something. In-line with the co-production ethos of CUBE, the developers have adopted a restorative approach for all staff, partner agencies and clients and see this as central to successful implementation. During this project, researchers with deep knowledge of a Restorative Approach and Co-production worked with CUBE to ensure that co-productive and restorative approaches shaped the services and centre as intended

Pushing back the margins: power, identity and marginalia in survey research with young people

The study of marginalia has not been widely discussed in social sciences research and occupies a marginal space in terms of methodological legitimacy. We highlight the value of paying attention to the ways in which participants speak back to the researcher. This paper draws on marginalia found in surveys written or drawn by young people in classrooms across South Wales, demonstrating how various notes and marks made spontaneously by participants can tell us something important and worthwhile about how young people engage with research. We position marginalia as a manifestation of complex power dynamics in the research process that illuminate participants’ negotiation of complex and multiple subjectivities in the literal margins and between the lines of the survey pages. Whilst the sensitive and rigorous analysis of marginalia is fraught with ethical and methodological challenges, we argue that paying closer attention to marginalia presents an opportunity for deeper engagement with participants when undertaking survey research