Research
You will find a complete range of our peer-reviewed monographs, multi-authored and edited works, including original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the 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.
Books: Research
Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Based on in-depth fieldwork with Belgian children aged 10 to 16, this book examines how children in shared physical custody define and negotiate their place within the household of each parent.
The authors analyse how family practices within and between each dwelling shape children’s sense home, and the strategies and skills children develop to manage and position themselves in these different environments.
Challenging common stereotypes and giving voice to children in shared custody, the book provides valuable insights for practitioners and scholars to better understand and support children and their parents.
This concluding chapter summarizes the main contributions of this book to the study of children’s sense of home. It then moves the discussion beyond this specific study. First, it relates the findings to the question of children’s socialization and habitus formation in a multilocal context. Second, it discusses the contributions of this research to the broader study of children in shared physical custody beyond the Belgian case – as well as its limitations. Third, it highlights some key lessons for practitioners. And finally, it presents possible ways to broaden the analysis to a wider range of family situations, spaces and significant others.
The concluding chapter reflects on the dominant stereotypes of stepmothers, and how the research findings provide a counter-narrative that reimagines their gendered roles and practices. The implications of these reimagined stepmothers for practitioners and stepfamilies alike are briefly discussed, with emphasis placed on the significance of transgression and empathy in how stepmothers are viewed. This chapter reaffirms the importance of a feminist sociological imagination as it highlights the intricate interplay between individual experiences and the structural dynamics of step(m)otherings, underlining the ‘transgressive possibilities’ of feminist research praxis.
This chapter discusses the persistent cultural stereotype of the wicked stepmother and its impact on public and personal perceptions of step/family members. Drawing on the author’s personal experiences as a stepmother, it explores the complex interplay between lived experience and academic research on this topic. The chapter also describes the practicalities and complexities of researching stepmothers, including their demographics, and details the feminist methodology used to capture their narratives, highlighting the challenges and ethical considerations inherent in studying such a marginalized role while being one of the stepmothers.
This chapter explores how children living in shared physical custody create continuity in their daily lives through a focus on the moment of transition between dwellings. Building on material studies and their relevance to family studies, it begins by identifying the varied roles that everyday objects play in the lives of children from separated families. By examining the material practices involved in transitioning between dwellings, it explores how managing personal belongings helps to create continuity in movement (with objects ‘in transit’) and anchor children in each of their residences (with ‘parked’ objects). It then also looks at how these practices align or conflict with the boundaries of parental islands and explains how these practices are influenced by material, spatial, temporal conditions, and educational values and styles. Lastly, the chapter explores the transitional spaces through which children pass as they travel between residences, identifying and discussing three specific types of space-times: public, familial and interstitial.
This chapter explores the varied practices that children – and their relatives – develop to maintain children’s connection with the ‘island’ they are leaving. To do so, it draws on the different forms of co-presence identified by Baldassar (2008) beyond physical co-presence, namely, symbolic/‘by proxy’, imagined/‘in thought’ and virtual.
The chapter begins by analysing how children use materiality to maintain a symbolic place within the family during their days of absence. It then examines how children also remain co-present ‘in thought’ when their family members think about them – or don’t think about them – when organizing family life during their absence. Finally, it discusses how children use information and communication technologies to maintain a sense of family unity and belonging through virtual forms of co-presence.
This chapter shows how children living in shared physical custody appropriate a space within each residence and, beyond that, negotiate and define a symbolic place within each dwelling and the family unit that resides there. It does this, first, by describing different practices through which they appropriate spaces. These include making one’s mark on a space through personal objects, arranging the space in a personal way, spending time in this space, and establishing a monopoly of use; and establishing material, virtual and symbolic borders. Second, it describes the negotiations and relational tensions that may arise with other family members (and, particularly, with step-parents and their children) in the negotiation of the ownership of spaces and objects in the dwelling and, thus, the place of each person in the family.
This chapter explores the boundaries that parents establish between their own dwelling and that of their ex-partner. It starts by identifying each parent’s ‘parental style’, which characterizes the style of interaction between parent and child with reference to a set of inter-individual norms, values and practices deployed within the ‘new family’ centred around a dwelling (an ‘island’). It then analyses the forms of inter-dwelling boundaries drawn by each parent, corresponding to specific parental styles, which shape five islands of varying contours. The permeability of these boundaries depends on three spatio-temporal limits: limits on movements (allowing children to move between parental residences; virtual contact limits (encouraging communication through technology); and transfer limits (allowing personal belongings to move between dwellings). Through children’s testimonies, this chapter then illustrates how these boundaries play out. Finally, it highlights how material, spatial, familial and temporal dimensions influence how parents establish these inter-household boundaries.
Stepmothers often battle with a range of negative myths and stereotypes, with Cinderella’s wicked stepmother being the most infamous.
Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with British stepmothers, this book reimagines the expectations, practices and position of stepmothers through a feminist sociological lens. Combining firsthand accounts, including the author’s own experiences, the book reveals the complexities of stepfamily dynamics and how stepmothers navigate them.
By examining the interplay between personal experiences and broader gendered, historical and social structures, the author offers a fresh perspective on contemporary stepmothers and stepfamilies.
In this chapter the categories of stepmother and stepchild are deconstructed, emphasizing their historical and gendered underpinnings. The chapter demonstrates how stepmothers often transgress societal norms in language, identity and society, exploring the possibilities for them to reclaim and reinterpret their identities in both public and private spheres. This process challenges and reinforces societal expectations. Diverse stepmothering forms, such as those who adopt their stepchildren and non-residential stepmothers, are examined to reimagine stepmother–stepchild relationships in their complexity. The detrimental effects of simplistic portrayals on stepfamily wellbeing, shaped by skewed institutional and social practices, are highlighted. This exploration aims to foster a nuanced understanding of stepmothering, portraying these relationships as dynamic, non-linear and inherently messy, like all human relationships.
