Family and Intergenerational Relationships Research Group launch
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:54:00 GMT
Researchers look to narrow the generation gap between younger and older people
Pictured at the launch of the Family and Intergenerational Relationships Research Group (FaIR) is Yvette Noel-Marks (centre) who was key-note speaker of the event standing alongside the University of Huddersfield's Dr Abigail Locke, Reader in Applied Social Psychology (left) and Dr Sharon Wray, Reader in Sociology.
A NEW research group at the University of Huddersfield aims to narrow a generation gap that is being widened by the ageing of the population.
The Family and Intergenerational Relationships Research Group (FaIR) includes academics from the UK and overseas, plus members of the community who are active in the field. It already has some 60 members and was launched at a conference held at the University. A programme of events and collaborations has been mapped out.
The co-directors of FaIR are the University’s Dr Abigail Locke, who is Reader in Applied Social Psychology, and Dr Sharon Wray, who is Reader in Sociology.
Dr Locke is currently researching parenting, including motherhood plus the roles of fathers and grandparents. Dr Wray’s areas of investigation include intergenerational relationships, ethnic diversity and domestic abuse, especially when inflicted on older women.
“There is huge interest in parenting and how families are operating,” said Dr Locke.
Dr Wray added that “there is a big research agenda currently around intergenerational issues, and ways to improve relationships between younger and older people. It is becoming more important because we have an ageing population and younger people are feeling disenfranchised.”
New partnerships
Pictured left to right with Dr Michelle Bartholomew, Senior Lecturer in the Division of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Huddersfield are Marie Lagush and Layla Dickinson from the Kirklees Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre (KRASACC), the University's Dr Berenice Golding, Lecturer in Social Sciences and Nafehsa Ali, PhD researcher within the School of Human and Health Sciences.
FaIR sits within the University of Huddersfield’s internationally-respected Centre for Applied Childhood Studies and has been created by the amalgamation of the University of Huddersfield’s Intergenerational Research Group and its Parenting Research Group.
Among the aims of FaIR are to strengthen and develop existing networks and provide the opportunity for new partnerships to be forged between academics and community groups, nationally and internationally.
For example, there is to be a key collaboration between FaIR and the Huddersfield-based Kirklees Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Centre (KRASACC).
At FaIR’s launch event, the keynote speaker was Yvette Noel-Marks, a professional chef who provided the catering for high-profile functions in London before returning to Huddersfield. She is currently catering manager at Kirkwood Hospice and her activities include a new research group that examines aspects of the African and Caribbean communities in Kirklees. Her address at the FaIR launch dealt with factors affecting intergenerational relationships within the African Caribbean community.
It is intended that FaIR will hold meetings every three months and there will be a programme of special events. The first of these will be a conference at the University of Huddersfield in March 2015. It is hoped that some of the group’s overseas members will attend. Already, researchers from countries including Canada, Sweden and the USA have joined FaIR.
A growing number of postgraduate students at the University of Huddersfield’s School of Human and Health Sciences are carrying out research that fits the remit of FaIR. Their topics include fatherhood, adoption and the well-being of older women from the South Asian community.
