Being an 'older parent': Chrononormativity and practices of stage of life categorisation

This article investigates the discursive practices of older first-time parents in interview interaction. Our focus is on the ways in which cultural notions surrounding the timing of parenthood are mobilised, and how speakers orient to potential discrepancies between the category ‘parent’ and their own stage of life (SOL) or age category. The data corpus comprises qualitative interviews with 15 heterosexual couples and individuals in the UK who became parents between the ages of 35–57 years. Examining reproductive biographical talk at midlife at a time when the average age of first time parents is rising and delayed parenting is increasing across Western countries provides a testing ground for the analysis of norms concerning the ‘right time’ of lifetime transitions, and age-appropriateness more generally. Inspired by Elizabeth Freeman’s notion of ‘chrononormativity’, our analysis demonstrates that ‘older parents’ engage in considerable discursive work to bridge temporal aspects of their parenthood. Moreover, we show how the notion of chrononormativity can be theoretically and empirically elaborated through the adoption of membership categorisation and discourse analysis. In explicating how taken-for-granted, temporal notions of lifespan events are mobilised, our findings contribute to research on age-in-interaction, social identity and categorisation, and on the methodology for analysing the discursive age-order and chrononormativity more broadly

Too old to parent? Discursive representations of late parenting in the British press

Focusing on a corpus of 90 UK newspaper articles (2008-2013) on late parenting (40+), this study examines the framing via different dimensions of age in the press coverage of such parents and parenting. Five main frames emerged: social change; personal frame; risks of late parenting; older continued parenting; and reproductive technology enabled parenting. The relationship of these framings to the discursive construction of ageing and late parenting reveals varying positionings of older parents that tend to reinforce, but also at times challenge, conventional expectations of ‘age-appropriate’ timing of reproduction, especially regarding women. Media Framing Analysis, critical discourse analysis and a social constructionist orientation to age(ing) and lifespan identity are drawn on in the analysis. The study also highlights how framing, as a concept from communication theory, together with different perspectives to ageing and different dimensions of age, can complement discourse analysis of news texts

Writing a master's thesis : Associations between the grade, self-efficacy for thesis writing, approaches to writing, and experiences of the thesis as a teaching and learning environment

Peer reviewe

UK magazine advertising portrayals of older adults: A longitudinal, content analytic, and a social semiotic lens

The focus of this article is the depiction of older adults in UK magazine advertising. Theoretically located in the broad area of cultural gerontology, with its central focus on culturally constitutive meaning of age(ing) (e.g. Twigg & Martin 2015), it applies social semiotic categories (Kress & van Leeuwen 1996, 2004) and draws on critical discourse analytic insights in investigating persistent trends in advertising images of older adults. These are linked with the role of advertising media in constructing and contributing to specific social “imaginary” or “imagination” of later life. A content analytic comparison between two corpora of adverts (221 ads from 1999 to 2004 and 313 ads from 2011 to 2016) reveals only minor changes over time. These include relative consistency in the product categories linked with older models, the adverts predominantly targeting older adults, but a decline in humorous portrayals. A semiotically oriented analysis of a subset of adverts further examines their compositional and affective dimensions, in addition to representational qualities. This uncovers strategies that are in line with aspirational third age discourse and imagery, but which also contribute to the marginalisation of older adults via a restricted portrayal of later life(styles) and can also be seen to problematise “ageless” depictions

The complex relationship between emotions, approaches to learning, study success and study progress during the transition to university

The demands and pressures during the first study year at university are likely to arouse a variety of emotions among students. Nevertheless, there are very few studies on the role of emotions in successful studying during the transition phase. The present study adopts a person-oriented and mixed-method approach to explore, first, the emotions individual students experience during the first year at university. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to group students (n = 43) on the basis of the emotions they described in an interview. Second, the study investigates how the students in the different clusters scored on approaches to learning (as measured on the Learn questionnaire) and how they succeeded (GPA) and progressed (earned credits per year) in their studies. Three emotion clusters were identified, which differed in terms of the deep and surface approaches to learning, study success and study progress: (1) quickly progressing successful students experiencing positive emotions, (2) quickly progressing successful students experiencing negative emotions and (3) slowly progressing students experiencing negative emotions. The results indicate that it is not enough to focus on supporting successful learning, but that attention should also be paid to promoting students' positive emotions and well-being at this time.Peer reviewe

A survey research on Finnish teacher educators' research-teaching integration and its relationship with their approaches to teaching

The study aims to clarify how Finnish teacher educators integrate research and teaching to support their approaches to teaching. Research questions cover teacher educators' forms of research-teaching integration, approaches to teaching, and the relationship between them. With a survey methodology, the study obtained 101 responses with a questionnaire. Six forms of research-teaching integration were identified with a qualitative content analysis. Integrating research with teaching content was mentioned most often, whereas integrating research with teaching methods and applying inquiry-oriented methods in teaching were reported less. Three kinds of approaches to teaching were found by cluster analysis. The participants with different approaches differed in their ways of research-teaching integration. However, the differences were not statistically significant in Chi-square tests. The study contributes to the international research on teacher educators and the variety in research-teaching integration in teacher education. Future research could further explore the individual and contextual factors influencing their research-teaching integration.Peer reviewe

Minority ethnic older adults’ narratives about COVID-19 public health campaigns

This study explores minority ethnic older adults’ narratives about COVID-19 public health campaigns in the UK from March 2020 to the present. In this qualitative research from a multidisciplinary perspective, we aim to explore these older adults’ lived experiences, thoughts, feelings, stories, and reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple national lockdowns, with a special reference to the UK National Health Service (NHS) campaigns. Surveys have shown that minority ethnic groups faced a greater risk from COVID-19 than others and such risk was said to be driven by factors such as living arrangements and jobs rather than pre-existing health conditions. This is also the group who showed lower vaccine uptake in the early stage of the UK national vaccination programmes. It is therefore critical to understand their responses and perceptions of COVID-19 public health messaging. Based on 20 tele-depth interviews and 20 online, 1-2-1 in-depth interviews, our particular focus will be on minority ethnic older adults’ (N=40) responses and reflections on the use of emotions and language in NHS COVID-19 campaigns. The interview participants are from a range of ethnic backgrounds, levels of education, and employment status. Our presentation will offer preliminary findings from the interviews. Through the lens of advertising studies, psychology, and linguistics, the interview data is investigated using thematic and discourse analysis, in order to: 1) better understand how best to communicate with vulnerable groups in the society in times of crisis; and 2) to shed light on future public health message design and strategy

Managing information, interaction and team building in nurse shift-change handovers: a case study

Whilst there is a wealth of literature on medical handovers, discourse analytic work based on recorded interactional data on these pivotal speech events in health care is less prevalent. This case study of a shift-change nursing handover at a UK hospital Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) takes a microanalytical perspective on nurses’ talk and interaction, which enables us to examine its structural and functional complexity at utterance level. Our methodological approach comprises observations, one semi-structured interview with senior nursing staff (and many informal conversations with various staff), and in total twelve audio-recordings of interactions during, and around, the twice-daily shift-change handovers. By adopting ‘a multiple goals in discourse’ perspective and the framework of activity analysis, we demonstrate the nurses’ interactional management of multiple discourse and activity roles and pursuance of goals that transcend the medically and institutionally crucial transmission of information. This shows the nurses’ orientation to the handover task as not only a structured institutionally regulated event, but also one that tolerates more spontaneous activities that can potentially contribute to team cohesion and staff well-being

Nursing handovers as unbounded and scalar events

In this paper we analyse data from nursing handover meetings in terms of the interplay of different voices that operate at different interactional and institutional scales. We suggest, firstly, that the handover is not a single bounded event, as suggested in previous literature, but rather a gradual moving in and out of focus of a particular discourse activity; and, secondly, that while different phases within the handover as an extended event are characterised by voices operating at a specific scale, there are continuous movements between scales in each phase. This leads us to suggest two categories of rescaling as an activity: translational rescalings, as the handover shifts between phases and from one scale to another, and digressive scales, in which the scale of interaction that typifies a specific phase is temporarily interrupted by another. We illustrate how both these categories serve important revoicing functions and, on the basis of this analysis, extend the use of scales theory in interactional linguistics through the addition of dynamic systems theory and a-curve distributions, in which 20% of token types predominate, while the remainder, or tail, perform essential complementary activities that over time can open up space for gradual shifts in the characteristics and overall function of the activity itself