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 chapter surveys the current state of engagement with ‘generations’ in the Humanities, particularly in literary and historical studies. It then examines the nature of generational affiliations and identities in the first century and a half of their emergence (c.1800–1945), and how they related to pre-existing genealogical models. The final section shows that these tensions between generation’s social and familial dimensions were well-recognized even back in the nineteenth century. This is illustrated through a case study of Margaret Oliphant’s novel Hester (1883), which depicts two successive generational moments when young women have to rise to the challenge to rescue their community, and also advocates for the value of intergenerational friendships.
There has been a significant recent increase globally in interest in intergenerational engagement. Bringing young and old together has sparked the imagination of policymakers, teachers, health and social care professionals, architects and city planners, as well as housing providers alike. The central tenet that draws everyone together is described as the ‘magic’ that occurs when different generations come together.
This chapter will look at three popular models of intergenerational activity in four different parts of the world – the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Japan: (1) co-housing – where university-aged students live with older people who need light touch support (in the Netherlands), (2) an early years nursery co-located in an elderly residential care home (UK) and (3) intergenerational programmes that bring older adults together with school-aged children (programmes in Japan as compared to Experience Corps in the US). Here, the examples used will explore how notions of generational identity are sometimes affirmed by intergenerational engagement and are also often contested. Importantly, it will ask: do we gain a different understanding of generational identity and its functions when we view it through the lens of intergenerational programming?
Generations are increasingly central to public discussions about future policy and social relationships, but the term is often deployed in narrow or confused ways. This can fuel division between age groups rather than producing shared understanding or solidarity. Imprecise use of the concept also deflects attention from other pressing areas of societal tension. This introduction outlines the complexities of the ‘generations’ concept, highlights some of the pitfalls involved in contemporary usage and understanding of the term, and identifies how to move past those pitfalls to produce a more precise and nuanced deployment of the generations concept in future. We discuss the evolution of the interdisciplinary generations network, and how this has informed the book. We conclude by outlining for the reader the book’s structure.
Employing psychosocial and psychotherapeutic perspectives, this chapter explores via theory and case studies the extent to which it is possible to talk about generational memory both within the self and within society. Building on the idea of a self that can be more or less informed by multigenerational memory, links are made to the social processes of remembering and forgetting. The complicating roles of trauma and secrets are discussed in relation to breaks in social memory. The chapter concludes by discussing both how the future can haunt the present and how victim persecutor dynamics can complicate and block the processes of remembering that are essential for conflict resolution. The dangers of the interactions between fragile selves and fragile societies are discussed as are ways of strengthening social memory and improving and promoting intergenerational mentalization. The chapter concludes by discussing how memory and identity emerge between and across the generations and can become resources for social problem-solving and action.
The chapter draws on data collected in England concerning in/equalities experienced across the course of their lives by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex plus other marginalized gender and sexual diverse (LGBTQI+) people. It demonstrates how attempts to make sense of interview narratives through a generational lens, was aided by Queer Theory, an approach in the humanities and social sciences that radically decentres and denaturalizes identity and the subject. The chapter considers how Queer Theory was used to think generationally about LGBTQI+ lives and to ‘queer’ or trouble the very idea of generations. In so doing, the chapter builds on some limited scholarship on the notion of ‘queer generations’ and whether generations and generational differences, exchanges and relationships across the life course can be applied to LGBTQI+ people. The chapter argues that LGBTQI+ people’s lives inherently queer linear, normative and reproductive notions of generations and thereby represent a challenge and important critique within generational scholarship.
In evaluating the power and limitations of the ‘social generations’ concept, developed by Karl Mannheim in the 1920s, this chapter reviews the different approaches to the study of generations within the discipline of sociology, with particular regard to their relationship to contemporary social, historical and political developments. The chapter further suggests that the increasing appeal of ideas about ‘social generations’ partly reflects the increasing salience of generational analysis to a ‘post-political’ age increasingly concerned with identity, and partly reflects the misunderstanding and extension of this analysis into crude generational labels and stereotypes. By way of illustration, the chapter concludes with a discussion of generational consciousness and labelling in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
The concept of ‘generations’ has become a widely discussed area, with recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic revealing our dependence on intergenerational relationships both within and beyond the family. However, the concept can often be misunderstood, which can fuel divisions between age groups rather than generating solutions.
This collection introduces and explores the growing field of generational studies, providing a comprehensive overview of its strengths and limitations. With contributions from academics across a range of disciplines, the book showcases the concept’s interdisciplinary potential by applying a generational lens to fields including sociology, literature, history, psychology, media studies and politics.
Offering fresh perspectives, this original collection is a valuable addition to the field, opening new avenues for generational thinking.
This chapter explores the changing identities and practices of the young men as they attempt to prepare for parenthood. How this transition is triggered – the extent to which young men exercise their sexual and reproductive agency – is a key focus of discussion. The implications of the findings for the development of Relationship and Sex Education provision is explored here, not least for those young men who fathered more than one child over the course of the study. The chapter considers how far the ethos of engaged fatherhood (introduced in Chapter 1) shapes the aspirations and practices of these young men. It reveals their ambivalence about their new status: the pregnancies were generally unplanned and came as a shock, in some cases, leading to mental health problems. Nevertheless, the young men developed a strong desire to ‘be there’ for their children. A range of factors enabled or constrained them in fulfilling this aspiration. Relational, behavioural and safeguarding barriers led some poorly resourced young fathers to lose contact with their children over time. However other young men, particularly those who were well resourced, found ways to sustain an engagement with their children over time.
This chapter focuses on the nature and quality of the young men’s relationships with the mothers of their children. Tracing the relationship journeys of these young men, it explores the extent to which they were able to forge workable co-parenting relationships with the mothers, as the basis for maintaining a relationship with their children. The different experiences of young men who are partnered or single, or living with or apart from their children are highlighted here, along with the barriers to co-parenting, including cases where contact is curtailed by the mothers. The quality of co-parenting relationships emerges as a key issue, with implications for the provision of family support and relationship education services. New insights are presented on shifts in gendered patterns of parenthood over time, and how tensions may arise between the ethos of engaged fatherhood and the enduring notion of a mother/child dyad. The latter is based on a deeply ingrained notion that mothers are the primary carers of their children, with the right to determine how a child will be raised and by whom.
