About
Within the Interdisciplinary Centre for Child and Youth Focused Research a number of distinct disciplines are represented. Members of the Centre engage in both discipline-based and interdisciplinary research.
Anthropology
The anthropologists in ICCYFR are all members of the Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research (C-FAR). C-FAR brings together members of the anthropology disciplinary group of the School of Social Sciences whose research focuses on children and young people. C-FAR members currently work on issues to do with child fostering, learning and apprenticeship, education and schooling, cognitive development, youth and political exclusion. Their research is carried out in a wide variety of regions, including Africa, South Asia, and Europe, including the United Kingdom. The research activities of C-FAR are closely tied in with the MSc degree in Cross Cultural Approaches to Children, Child Development and Youth and the MSc degree in the Anthropology of Education offered by the anthropology group.
Nicolas Argenti & Peggy Froerer
Education
Geeta Ludhra
Health
Brunel has a number of health researchers whose interests relate to children and youth. All are also members of the Centre for Public Health Research.
Lorraine De Souza & Subhash Pokhrel
Human Geography
Geographies of children and youth are a focal area of research for members of the Centre for Human Geography. The geographers are interested in the socially and spatially uneven impacts on young people of economic, political, cultural and social processes, and the ways in which these processes are experienced and responded to by children and youth as individuals and groups. Research also examines how discourses of childhood and youth are constructed through these processes. Current areas of research include the impacts of AIDS on young people's livelihoods in southern Africa, and young people's use of buses in the UK. Geographers have worked with others in ICCYFR on a number of projects including a DFES-funded study of the impact of out of school childcare on children and parents and are participants in a research framework agreement with DWP.
Nicola Ansell, John Barker, Susan Buckingham, Fiona Smith & Emma Wainwright
Law
Those members of the centre who are based in the Law School work in the areas of youth justice, family law and child law. Their work is largely socio-legal in nature and their research encompasses both law and policy. The research carried out within law is very varied. Much of the research focuses on the way in which children and family relationships are understood and portrayed within the law and within family policy. It also seeks to uncover and to critically examine the assumptions underlying the law and policy. Other work within the Law School has focused on gender related issues and the way in which women and mothers are treated in the law. Fatherhood has also been the focus of research as has the role of grandparents. Some of the lawyers’ research has adopted an historical perspective, including research into the way in which child sexuality has been constructed over time. The research has also included some small-scale empirical studies. These studies have explored issues such as domestic violence and adoption.
Felicity Kaganas & Christine Piper
Psychology
Within psychology, research interests focus on HIV/AIDS amongst adolescents in Eastern Europe, social change and its impact on relationships, and values and value change.
Robin Goodwin & Nicola Madge
Social Work and Social Policy
Christy Barry, Peter Beresford, Taghi Doostgharin, Judith Harwin, Peter Hemming, Sheila ShinmanSport Sciences
Child-focused research in Sport Sciences focuses on child welfare and protection in sport and the role of sport in rehabilitation of child victims of conflict. It incorporates the Centre for Youth Sport and Athlete Welfare. Welfare and safeguarding issues are becoming increasingly important in the national and international sport policy agendas. For example: the NSPCC has its own dedicated Child Protection in Sport Unit, for which the CYSAW has been the primary research leader since its inception in 2001; the International Olympic Committee recently adopted a Consensus Statement that was facilitated by the Centre Director; and, in July 2007, UNICEF embarked on a long-term research relationship with Brunel to investigate violence to children in sport. CYSAW research expertise in child abuse, protection and welfare in sport is unmatched in any university at home or abroad.
Gary Armstrong & Celia Brackenridge
Youth Work
Members of the Centre for Youth Work Studies (CYWS) also participate in ICCFYR. The Centre was established in the University in 1973 through collaboration between the University and local authority youth services in the London region. It has since developed a national and international reputation in research and teaching in the field of youth work and in developing a theoretical understanding of the changing contexts of this work and social policy directives aimed at young people and the professionals who work with them. The Centre undertakes research relating to young people’s contemporary identities and cultures in a range of material and virtual settings; the role of formal and informal education practictioners; and government policies on educational and social issues relating to young people.
