Principal Supervisor: Dr Charlotte Faircloth (Associate Professor, Social Research Institute, UCL)
Co-Supervisor: Professor Lisa Baraitser (Professor of Psychosocial Theory, School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck)
Project Description
Rationale & significance: Professor Ann Oakley’s ground-breaking Becoming a Mother project reshaped thinking about motherhood in the late 20th century, established a multi-disciplinary area of academic research, and provoked a sea-change in practice and policy around maternity care. 50 years on from the research that led to the publication of Becoming a Mother (Oakley, 1979), in a time of accelerating social change, this PhD studentship forms part of a new research team revisiting this landmark project. The doctoral researcher will have exclusive access to the archive of original study materials in order to extend and deepen research into contemporary parenthood. This will fill an important gap in the original research by examining fatherhood, specifically examining how emergent ideals of ‘involved’ fatherhood have affected maternal subjectivity.
The PhD studentship, co-supervised by Faircloth (UCL Social Research Institute) and Baraitser (School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck) will take an inter-generational, longitudinal, and historically comparative approach, drawing on the disciplinary specialisms of the supervisors (in sociology and psychosocial studies respectively).
The driving questions are:
- What are the continuities and changes in the transition to (and experience of) first-time parenthood, specifically in the context of a more ‘involved’ fatherhood?
- What produces and effects these changes and continuities?
- What are the lasting implications of this transition to, and experience of, maternal and paternal subjectivities?
- What recommendations can be made to ensure that early child-rearing is a period of flourishing for those involved?
By becoming part of the newly ESRC funded ‘50 Years of Becoming a Mother’ team at UCL, this doctoral researcher will have the opportunity to compare accounts from the ‘original’ women interviewed by Oakley in the 1970s, with those of a ‘new’ cohort of women, who are giving birth in the same London hospital, 50 years on. The doctoral researcher will have exclusive access to these transcripts by which to carry out secondary data analysis around the changing role of fathers over the last 50 years. However, they will also conduct new qualitative empirical research with fathers/partners from each of those cohorts (i.e., partners of the ‘original’ mothers who are willing and able to take part – this cohort are now in their 70s and 80s – as well as any partners of the ‘new’ mothers.) In the second instance, a socially mixed class-based sample will be sought, to include considerable ethnic diversity, compensating for some of the bias in the original study. Due to changes in family structures and reproductive technologies we will also purposively include solo parents, same-sex parent families, and those raising children in other diverse kinship arrangements, and recognise that not all those giving birth will identify as ‘mothers’, or partners as ‘fathers’, or partners of ‘mothers’. There is room for methodological and analytical innovation, depending on the interests of the doctoral researcher – e.g. the use of diaries, and photo elicitation techniques, and other creative methods, alongside more traditional forms of data analysis.
The doctoral researcher will be part of the team producing significant and wide-ranging outputs for a variety of users and generating new knowledge around social experiences and meanings of reproduction. This includes non-academic publications, policy briefs; a planned television documentary and podcast; and dissemination events publicised across a range of media platforms. Our hope is that these findings will have a lasting impact on public discourse and social policy, offering us a timely portrait of how motherhood fatherhood – and indeed Britain – have changed.
Person specification: Applicants will have a first degree in a relevant academic discipline (e.g. sociology, anthropology, gender studies, history, psychosocial studies, social psychology) as well as a good subject knowledge of the sociology and psychosocial study of parenting cultures, gender studies, social reproduction, and maternal studies broadly conceived. Experience of qualitative research is desirable.
Subject Areas/Keywords:
Parenting Culture Studies; Psychosocial Studies; Motherhood, Fatherhood; Maternal Studies; Social Reproduction; Historical Change
Key References
Baraitser, Lisa (2008) Maternal encounters: the ethics of interruption. Women and Psychology. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780415455015.
Faircloth, C. (2021). Couples’ Transitions to Parenthood: Gender, Intimacy and Equality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Oakley, A. (1979). Becoming a Mother. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Under the title From Here to Maternity. Harmondsworth: Penguin (1981). Reprinted with new Introduction (1986). Schocken Books, reissued with new introduction (1986). Reprinted New Classics edition with new introduction (2019) Policy Press.
Oakley, A., Wiggins, M., Strange, V., Sawtell, M., & Austerberry, H. (2011). Becoming a mother: continuities and discontinuities over three decades. In: Ebtehaj F, Herring J, Johnson MH & Richards M (eds). Birth Rights and Rites. Oxford, Hart Publishing, pp 9-27
Further details about the project may be obtained from:
Principal Supervisor: Charlotte Faircloth – c.faircloth@ucl.ac.uk
Co-Supervisor: Lisa Baraitser – l.baraitser@bbk.ac.uk
Further information about PhDs at UCL is available from:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/doctoral-school/funding/apply-studentships
How to Apply
Closing date for applications is:
Wednesday 19th February 2025 at 23.59 (GMT)
The Bloomsbury Colleges 