Jan Macvarish
Jan Macvarish is a British sociologist. She works as a research fellow at the Center for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent and is a pioneer in the emerging field of culture of parenting ( Engl. Parenting culture studies ). Her research interests as a sociologist are in the areas of interpersonal relationships, parenting, family life, sexuality and intimacy.
Life and research
Macvarish studied sociology, social anthropology and history at Keele University and went to the University of Kent in 2001 for a PhD. Her doctoral thesis, The New Single Woman: Contextualizing Individual Choice , completed in 2007, dealt with the social construction of female singletons and described a change in the iconography of single women away from the type of empty, involuntarily lonely women to a new type of women who made conscious decisions without a partner stay.
She then did research on the motherhood of minors and on government regulation of fertility treatments. She is currently (2015) researching the influences of neuroscience on parenthood and family life.
Macvarish received attention beyond specialist circles when, in 2010, she argued that many parental preferences for certain parenting practices and educational teachings - especially attachment parenting - are not oriented towards the needs of the child, but primarily towards the parents' self-image , which also leads to a " parental tribalism , in which parents group themselves in camps that are hostile to each other and judge each other on whether they are breastfeeding or what form of diaper they are using.
Publications (selection)
book
- with Ellie Lee , Jennie Bristow and Charlotte Faircloth : Parenting Culture Studies , New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, ISBN 978-1137304636
Essays
- What is 'the Problem' of Singleness? , Sociological Research Online, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2006
- with JR Billings: Challenging the anti-social, amoral and irrational construction of the teenage mother . In: S. Duncan, R. Edwards, C. Alexander (Eds.): Teenage Parenthood: What's the Problem? Tufnell Press, 2010, pp. 47-69.
- The effect of 'risk-thinking' on the contemporary construction of teenage motherhood , Health, Risk & Society, Volume 12, Issue 4, 2010, pp. 313–322.
- Understanding the Significance of the Teenage Mother in Contemporary Parenting Culture , 2010
- Biologising parenting: Neuroscience discourse and parenting culture , 2013
- with Ellie Lee and Pam Lowe: The Uses and Abuses of Biology: Neuroscience, Parenting and Family Policy in Britain A 'Key Findings' Report , 2014
Web links
- Jan Macvarish's website at the University of Kent
- Dr Jan Macvarish discusses teenage mums YouTube video
Individual evidence
- ↑ Single and happy. Retrieved January 25, 2015 . The Telegraph, September 29, 2010
- ↑ Understanding the Significance of the Teenage Mother in Contemporary Parenting Culture; Parental tribalism. Retrieved January 25, 2015 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Macvarish, Jan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British sociologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 20th century |