Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This Conclusion summarises the main points of the book, drawing on insights from global biographical and narrative research while revealing the complexities of social expectations of mothering and motherhood that prevail in contemporary societies. The Conclusion identifies many ways that this book contributes to existing literature, and, crucially, how it advances conceptual and empirical insights into mothers’ everyday lives, imagined futures and interconnecting past, present and future selves from the bottom-up perspective. The chapter brings the reader ‘full circle’ from the key question posed in the Preface ‘Why a book on modern mothering?,’ to providing future agendas for biographic narrative research. It explores fruitful conceptual and methodological avenues for transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research dialogues.
Lone-parent families are not a homogenous group; rather this family form is varied. Despite the vast array of research into the lives and experiences of lone parents in Ireland, there is a dearth of information on the particular groups that form the lone-parent cohort. This research fills the gaps in existing knowledge in relation to those who are lone parents through separation or divorce. Through utilisation of biographical narrative interviews, this study explores the experiences of 15 Irish mothers with primary school-aged children who have undergone a legal separation and/or divorce, and, using a voice-centred relational method of analysis, identifies the needs of this group to assess how Irish social policy and service provision respond to these needs. Underpinned by a feminist approach, this research amplifies the voices of the mothers by using biographical narrative interviews. These interviews showed that experiences of intimidation, constraint, uncertainties and responsibilities were often evident in stories shared by lone mothers. Significantly, these experiences are linked to differences and inequalities between mothers and fathers, with the consequences of such being more pronounced for mothers who are of a lower socio-economic status.
By viewing mothering as a multifaceted concept that comprises both mundane practice and symbolic meaning, this chapter explores the processes through which the identity of a good mother is shaped among older Iranian Muslim women by hegemonic gender norms, and how these women, in turn, express their agency.
Drawing on 30 biographical interviews with older Muslim women living in Tehran and Karaj, this chapter discusses how these women negotiate and mediate gender power through their bodies, as well as in the specific ways in which they interpret dominant cultural symbolism to construct their gendered biographies and identities. Significantly, this chapter presents the expressions that participants used to define ‘a proper wife’ and a ‘successful mother’ to explore normative gender expectations from the points of view of the participants. This, along with their consideration of what constitutes ‘a good girl’, substantially expands our understanding of femininity and masculinity, and of gender relations between men and women in Iran.
Ideal motherhood, characterised by expectations of intensive, limitless and selfless care, serves to hold women responsible for all that befalls their children, and works to individualise and privatise the work of childbearing and rearing. The individualisation of mothering work, the shortcomings of social and structural supports for that work, and the sanctions on women who fail to meet normative expectations of ideal motherhood are intensified for disabled women.
Our narrative interviews with 44 disabled Canadian women about their pregnancy decisions and mothering experiences illuminate normative notions of what kinds of women can, and perhaps should, be mothers, and highlight the specific challenges disabled mothers face. The women described barriers to becoming and remaining mothers, and were particularly vulnerable to social isolation, abusive partners, and the effects of poverty. They also experienced surveillance and intervention from helping professionals and multiple structural barriers to accommodation. The women’s stories highlight ‘disability embodiment’, the interaction between their corporeal issues and the social, political and economic aspects of disability, which deeply affect disabled women’s mothering.
The identities of mothers are interwoven into their multiple roles, and are often caught in between their individual identities and collective identities, their sense of belonging and their parental duties. Mothers constantly negotiate their identities by facing economic hardships, social, cultural and racial stereotypes, and are challenged by societal expectations of parenting styles. Societal expectations of the role of mothers are high, but what does it mean to live up to these expectations in a disadvantaged area of England while providing children with what they need? This chapter focuses on the findings from a biographical study of mothers of primary school children in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Greater London, UK. Biographical narrative analysis contributes to an imaginative dialogue between two mothers on life choices, the meanings of mothering, parenting and mothers’ identities.
This research draws on interviews with Irish women who consciously decided to forego the motherhood mandate, opting instead to pursue a life without children. The study examines the motives that influenced the women in their decision making, considers the ways in which society reacts to the women’s decision making, and the strategies and identity management techniques that women engage in to preserve a positive sense of self. The women’s narrative accounts document the complex and ambiguous development of a life trajectory based on personal desires and ambitions, free from the commitment and responsibilities involved in raising children.
The legal and social situation of foster care and the role expectations of foster parenthood embody a variety of tensions. In many foster families, mothers experience their role as ‘the mother of the foster child’, and foster mothers want to be ‘good mothers’ – often even ‘better mothers’ compared with the child’s birth mother. Accordingly, foster mothers tend to exhibit intensive mothering. However, if foster care placements break down, the affected foster mothers experience the breakdown not only as an end of their role as foster mothers, but as a shattering of their entire identity.
The chapter is based on a study conducted in Switzerland, Germany and the UK on ‘Breakdown in Foster Care’ and focuses solely on the German sample. A brief introduction to the structural context of foster care in Germany is provided, and structural ambivalences and contradictions reagrding foster care from the German-language literature are presented and discussed. In the context of the aforementioned project, partial biographical interviews of the various actors involved were conducted, and multi-perspective case studies were reconstructed. The chapter draws on two contrasting case studies of foster mothers and their foster sons.
This chapter analyzes the three types of religious wedding that are explicitly mentioned in the Marriage Act 1949: Anglican, Quaker, and Jewish weddings. It explains why these three types of wedding are accorded special treatment and the legal requirements that apply to them. It also shows how formal recognition brings its own constraints. It discusses how Anglican clergy have a duty to conduct the marriages of any persons who qualify to be married in their parish, regardless of the individuals’ beliefs, unless specifically exempted from doing so. It then shows how Quaker and Jewish weddings must take place within a certain authority structure and conform to their usages; in addition, Jewish weddings are only available where both parties are Jewish. Finally, it shows how the special treatment of these weddings exists despite the differences in how they are celebrated: there is no common core that differentiates them from other forms of wedding and justifies their special treatment.
This chapter explores how weddings law in England and Wales – in contrast to the position in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland – currently makes no provision for non-religious belief organizations to conduct weddings. It shows that the law was originally intended to allow for the expression of non-religious beliefs: there was (and is) no requirement that a ceremony in a registered place of worship be conducted according to any religious rites, still less those of the group that registered the building. It also shows how the concept of ‘worship’ was previously broad enough to allow non-religious belief organizations to register their buildings. While that option has since been removed by the courts’ adoption of a narrower definition of worship, the number of non-legally binding ceremonies conducted by celebrants affiliated to Humanists UK (previously the British Humanist Association) has grown. The chapter discusses how ‘personalization’ is key to Humanist ceremonies, drawing on a case study from the Nuffield Foundation-funded project. It also explores the relationship between Humanist beliefs and the choice of a Humanist ceremony, as discussed by participants in the study, and the extent to which a Humanist ceremony may also include reference to religious beliefs.
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In principle, couples getting married in England and Wales can choose to do so in a way that reflects their beliefs. In practice, the possibility of doing so varies considerably depending on the religious or non-religious beliefs they hold.
To demonstrate this divergence, this book draws on the accounts of 170 individuals who had, or led, a wedding ceremony outside the legal framework. The authors examine what these ceremonies can tell us about how couples want to marry, and what aspects of the current law preclude them from doing so.
This new evidence shows how the current law does not reflect social understandings of what makes a wedding meaningful. As recommended by the Law Commission, reform is urgently needed.
