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Projects in 2014

Neurodiverse Childhoods

Brain traced by neon tubes

Investigators: Lindsay O’Dell (Lecturer, OU Faculty of Health & Social Care) with Charlotte Brownlow, (University of Western Queensland, Australia) and Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, (Umea University, Sweden)

Enduring Love? Couple relationships in the 21st century

Investigators: Jacqui Gabb (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Janet Fink (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciencces), Jane McCarthy (Reader, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Martina Klett-Davies (Research Associate, OU Faculty of Social Sciences)

Placing Ourselves - investigating categories of belonging and integration

Placing Ourselves

Despite decades of policy-research dialogue integration within the context of migration-mobility remains a contested concept. This project aims to challenge existing binaries in migration, multiculturalism and integration research by conducting research into the dialogical relations between place and practices of belonging and integration.

Family Troubles?

Child on Swing

How far are difficult or painful events a general feature of family lives, how do troubled families normalise their lives, and when do ‘changes’ and ‘troubles’ become ‘harm’? And how do ‘family’ discourses and practices re/create such divisions and perspectives?

Rewriting the rules: expanding understandings of love, sex and relationships

Rewriting the rules: Book

Investigator: Meg-John Barker (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences)

This project examines dominant understandings of romantic relationships, and explores ways in which the 'rules' of such relationships are being rewritten in various ways.

Fragile Fathering: negotiating intimacy and risk in parenting practice

Investigators:  Brid Featherstone (Professor, OU Faculty of Health & Social Care), Jacqui Gabb (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Esther Dermott (University of Bristol)

Through case study and comparative analysis of data from two sets of fathers we will interrogate: how these fathers understand risks in relation to intimacy, sexuality and the body; the significance of popular media debates in shaping father-child interactions; the differential impact of social policies and legislation on paternal practices in particular contexts.

Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration

Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration: A comparative analysis of SADC and UNASUR health policies (PRARI) is a social development research project that looks at world-regional social governance, politics, and policy. PRARI brings together an international team of researchers studying the scope for enhancing the effectiveness of the contributions of Southern regional organisations to poverty reduction. PRARI started in March 2014 and runs to the end of 2015.

Understanding the Self-management of Chronic Low Back Pain

Self-management is a core feature of contemporary forms of governance and it is central to current health strategy around chronic low back pain. Its concept and meaning for those involved, however, need to be better understood if it is to be successful. CCIG’s Professor Paul Stenner is currently working on developing new solutions and methods for meeting the challenges of chronic low back pain.

Skin Lightening in England: a baseline survey

Steve Garner is leading a one-year pilot project funded by the British Academy on Skin Lightening in England. This ground-breaking project is the first attempt to measure and understand use of these products in England.

The project is a pilot whose objectives are:

- to create the first dataset about skin lightening in this country

- begin scoping skin lightening practices using quantitative data, to prepare the way for qualitative data collection in a later funding bid

Death in the family in urban Senegal

Death in the family in urban Senegal

This research project provides the first in-depth understanding of responses to death, care and family relations in urban Africa.

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Research projects archive