Ms Jo Moran-Ellis
Senior Lecturer
Qualifications: BSc (City), MSc (Surrey)
Email: j.moran-ellis@surrey.ac.uk
Phone: Work: 01483 68 6975
Room no: 14 AD 03
Further information
Biography
Jo Moran-Ellis joined the Department in 1992, and was Head of Department from 2006 to 2012. She was previously a Senior Research with Hampshire Social Services Department where she undertook research into service provision, evaluations of new initiatives, and provided consultancy services to support social workers’ own research into practice and provision. Prior to that Jo worked as a researcher on projects concerned with organisational responses by health and social services to child abuse, with a particular focus on child sexual abuse. Since her appointment at Surrey her research has focused on two main strands: the sociology of childhood and, separately, questions of research methodology with an emphasis on mixed methods. She has also continued her interest in applied research, with work on violence against women, and evaluations of children’s mental health services.
Working from a theoretical basis, Jo’s work focuses on understanding children as social actors who are located within networks which include inter-generational relationships and structural conditions. In recent work, Jo has looked at children and sleep, children’s participation, children and vulnerability. She has also conducted a number of evaluation studies for Surrey County Council looking at the structure of children’s mental health services with respect to all children, Looked After children, children with Learning Disabilities, and children with ADHD. This work has contributed to the development of CAMHS services in Surrey. Her methodological work has engaged with questions concerning the use and application of mixed and multiple methods, with a focus on the challenges of integration and triangulation.
Jo has a strong commitment to promoting international networks of childhood researchers, organising many international colloquia and ESA streams on childhood since 1999. Together with Madeleine Leonard (Queen’s Belfast) and Randi Dyblie Nilsen (NTNU, Norway) she formally established the European Sociological Association (ESA) ‘Sociology of Children and Childhood’ Research Network (RN04) in 2006. RN04 is the key network for European researchers in the sociology and social studies of children and childhood and it is a forum for conferences, the network stream at each ESA conference, as well as a forum for communication between European researchers in this field. Jo served as Chair of RN04 from 2006 to 2012. She is now a member of the organising committee for the 2013 ESA conference in Turin. Jo was also Secretary to the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee for Childhood Studies (RC53) from 2002 to 2006.
Jo is currently Visiting Scholar at the Research Centre ‘Childhoods.Societies’, at the University of Wuppertal in Germany for the duration of 2012-13. She has also been a visiting academic relating to her work in childhood at the Norwegian Centre for Childhood Research (NOSEB) at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU), and Visiting Academic in Mixed Research Methods at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She is also on the editorial board of Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau" (Social Sciences Review).
During her current sabbatical, Jo has been developing work on early childhood, children and trust, children and sexuality, and is also beginning an engagement with the sociology of humans and other animals, with a special interest in the implications of this area of work for thinking about children and childhood.
Jo is Member of -
- ESRC Peer Review College
- European Sociological Association (ESA) Sociology of Children and Childhood Research Network,
- British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
- British Sociological Association.
Research Interests
Her research interests cover the social study of childhood, early childhood, child protection, children’s mental health and wellbeing, and children and sleep. She has also worked on issues in integrating methodologies in multiple methods research. She is currently working on children and trust, children and sexuality, and vulnerability and resilience.
Publications
Journal articles
- . (2012) ''It came up to here': Learning from children's flood narratives'. Taylor & Francis Children's Geographies, 10 (2), pp. 135-150.
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(2010) 'Reflections on the Sociology of Childhood in the UK'. SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD Current Sociology, 58 (2), pp. 186-205.Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/227173/
Abstract
The emergence and development of the sociology of childhood in the UK is strongly connected to the establishment of this area of study in the Nordic countries. However any account of this must also look at the wider context of political and cultural constructions of childhood, children and young people, and intergenerational relationships in the UK. In the early stages of childhood studies there was a synchrony between the orientation of the new social studies of childhood in the UK and changes in how children came to be politically positioned, particularly with respect to an emphasis on children’s voices, their capacity to be agentic and their status as social actors. Since then the political status of childhood has become more problematic. In the last few years there has been a notable shift towards the demonization of teenagers (adolescents) along with rising levels of anxiety concerning children generally. This represents something of a divergence between the orientations of UK policy and politics and contemporary orientations of the sociology of childhood.
- . (2009) 'Fostering the Cultural Aspects of Doing Research’'. Forum Qualitative Social Research, 10 (2)
- . (2008) 'Kinderrechte und Kinderpolitik (Children's Rights and Politics of Childhood'. Widersprüche, 28 (109), pp. 53-69.
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(2007) 'The sleeping lives of children and teenagers: Night-worlds and arenas of action'. SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD Sociological Research Online, 12 (5) Article number 9 doi: 10.5153/sro.1606Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/227179/
Abstract
Most research into sleep, even that which includes a sociological dimension, tends to focus on sleep outcomes, in effect following an agenda set by the natural sciences and psychology. The work reported in this paper engages with the material and social dimensions of sleep from within social constructionist and interactionist frameworks, seeking to explore and theorise the meaning and experience of sleep from the perspective of the sleeper. In doing this, we examine how contemporary constructions of sleep and constructions of childhood and adolescence arise and are linked in the UK context. Sleep time tends to be constructed as empty of activity other than sleeping and devoid of the sorts of interactions that characterise wakeful day-time. However, a grounded analysis of qualitative data generated with 9 children and 20 teenagers suggested that the assumption of absence of activity and interaction was misleading: their nights were populated by a range of actors, presences and activities. Placing our focus on these aspects of our participants' accounts of their sleep we found that the temporal, spatial and interactional dimensions of routine sleep served to create a definable arena of action (Hutchby and Moran-Ellis 1998) which was marked out both materially and socially. We conceptually frame this arena of sleep as a night-world (Moran-Ellis, 2006).
- . (2007) 'Towards an understanding of British public attitudes concerning human cloning'. PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, 65 (2), pp. 377-392.
- . (2007) 'The science in the intelligent design debate: teach it like it is'. ACAD SCIENCE SOUTH AFRICA A S S AF S AFR J SCI, 103 (7-8), pp. 271-273.
- . (2006) 'Triangulation and integration: Processes, claims and implications'. Qualitative Research, 6 (1), pp. 45-59.
- . (2006) 'UK public attitudes to reproductive and therapeutic human cloning.'. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 13 (Supplement)
- . (2000) 'Making connections: Children, technology, and the national grid for learning'. SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE, 5 (3), pp. U64-U80.
- . (2000) 'Making connections: Children, technology, and the national grid for learning'. Sociological Research Online: an electronic journal, 5 (3)
- . (1999) 'Children as informal interpreters in GP consultations: pragmatics and ideology'. Sociology of Health and Illness: a journal of medical sociology, , pp. 163-186.
- . (1998) 'The ambiguity of play'. BLACKWELL PUBL LTD SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 46 (4), pp. 852-854.
- . (1998) 'Practical social research: Project work in the community'. BLACKWELL PUBL LTD SOCIAL POLICY & ADMINISTRATION, 32 (1), pp. 87-93.
- . (1998) 'Introduction to the philosophy of social research'. BLACKWELL PUBL LTD SOCIAL POLICY & ADMINISTRATION, 32 (1), pp. 87-93.
- . (1998) 'Welfare and policy: Research agendas and issues'. BLACKWELL PUBL LTD SOCIAL POLICY & ADMINISTRATION, 32 (1), pp. 87-93.
- . (1996) 'A national survey of the investigation of child sexual abuse'. British Journal of Social Work, 26, pp. 337-356.
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(1995) 'Party identification and attitudes towards homosexuals in great britain'. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 7 (1), pp. 23-39.doi: 10.1093/ijpor/7.1.23
Conference papers
- . (2003) 'Public attitudes towards advances in genomics.'. Bournemouth: Proceedings of the British Psychological Society 12
- . (2003) 'Psychological and social processes underlying public attitudes towards genomics.'. Psychology, Sociology: Proceedings of the British Psychological Society 11(2)
Books
- . (2001) Children, Technology, and Culture. Routledge
- . (1998) Children and Social Competence: Arenas of Action. Routledge
Book chapters
- . (2013) 'Children’s Well-being and Politics'. in Ben-Arieh A, Froenes I, Casas F, Korbin JE (eds.) Handbook of Child Well-Being. Theory, Indicators, Measures and Policies Springer Verlag
- . (2013) 'The Child in Society'. in Braches-Chyrek R, Nelles D, Oelerich G, Schaarschuch A (eds.) Bildung, Gesellschaftstheorie und Soziale Arbeit Opladen/Berlin/Toronto : Verlag Barbara Budrich , pp. 291-301.
- . (2013) 'Adult Trust and Children’s Democratic Participation'. in Warming H (ed.) Participation, Citizenship and Trust in Children's Lives Palgrave MacMillan Article number 2 , pp. 32-51.
- . (2012) 'Sexting, intimacy and criminal acts: translating teenage sextualities'. in Johnson P, Dalton D (eds.) Policing Sex Routledge, Taylor & Francis Article number 8 , pp. 115-131.
- . (2010) 'Kinderpolitik und KInderschutz - Demokratisierung durch Kinderrechte (Politics of Childhood and Child Protection - Democratisation via Children's Rights'. in Mierendorff J (ed.) Jahrbuch für Pädagogik 10 (Yearbook of Education 10 Frankfurt/New York : Peter Lang
- . (2008) 'Giving Children A Voice: Childhood, Power and Culture’'. in Houtsonen J, Antikainen A (eds.) Symbolic Power in Cultural Contexts: Uncovering Social Reality Rotterdam : Sense Publisher , pp. 75-92.
- . (2008) 'Mixed methods'. in Gilbert N (ed.) Researching Social Life 3rd edition. London : Sage , pp. 125-144.
- . (2008) 'The Analytic Integration of Qualitative Data Sources'. in Alasuutari P, Bickman L, Brannen J (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods Sage Publications Ltd , pp. 572-584.
- . (1998) 'Situating Children's Social Competence'. in Hutchby I, Moran-Ellis J (eds.) Children and Social Competence: Arenas of Action Routledge , pp. 1-20.
Reports
- . (2007) Public attitudes to governance: A qualitative study in a deliberative context.. London : Wellcome Trust
- . (2002) Attitudes to date rape and relationship rape: a qualitative study. in (ed.) Research report - 2 HMSO
Teaching
Jo is currently on sabbatical (2012-13) but during her tenure as HoD she continued to teach two modules at undergraduate level: Final year module: Sociology of Childhood; 1st year module: Re:presenting Difference (co-taught and for which we received a teaching award in May 2009).
Her areas of teaching from 2013 are:
Children and Violence (year 2, undergraduate)
Sociology of Childhood (year 2, undergraduate)
Sociology of Humans and (other) animals (year 3, undergraduate)
PhD development seminars
ERASMUS exchanges
- Aarhus University, Copenhagen
Selected previous teaching
Qualitative research methods
Sociology of Social Policy
Sociology of Child Protection
Re:presenting Difference
PhD Supervision
Jo is currently supervising the following students and topics:
Lexie Scherer – children reading and identity
Jessica Underhill – disabled children and sleep
Neil Sykes – families and housing evictions for anti-social behaviour
Amanda Blood – children with ADHD, an actor network theory approach
Toni Schwarz – a sociology of young people and un/happiness
Linnea Osterman – women who desist from crime, a cross-national comparison
Cornelia Wilson – parenting disabled young people
Bryony Chater –consent in sexual relationships
Katherine Hubbard – a history of the Rorschach tests
Previous Students awarded and topics
2012: Sophie Sarre – Temporality in Families with Teenagers and Its Articulation with Gender and Generation
2011: Mark Bush – What Imagined Futures? Constructions of Asperger’s Syndrome and adult becomings in an age of uncertainty
2010: Mark Rees – “Living in no man’s land” – the experiences of male victims of stalking
2008: Anna Connolly – ‘Have you seen the people who just stand outside of MacDonalds all day and night? I am one of them.’ ‘Socially’ excluded girls and their experiences of exclusion.
2007: Andy King - “A life changing experience”? A situated analysis of identity work in young people’s accounts of their Gap Year
2006: Deborah Wason – Measuring child poverty in Lesotho
2006: Tonia Rifaey - Child Labour in Old Cairo and the roles children negotiate through work, leisure and family bonds
2006: Yin Wong – Race, ethnicity and childhood: an ethnography of ‘Chinese-English’ children in Britain
2006: Gwynn Grout - Now you see them, now you don’t: mental health problems in old age in the general hospital setting
2005: Diane Fellowes - The religious experiences of people with enduring mental health problems
2004: Sirkka Komulainen – An institutional ethnography of young children’s ‘communication difficulties’ in two specialist settings
2003: Alison Cocks - ‘We were all very out of breath’ – Peer culture: Disabled children and segregation
2002: Christina Silver – The development of school-based sex education in the Netherlands and England and Wales
2000: Jane Hunt – Paediatric oncology nurses specialists
Departmental Duties
DEPARTMENTAL AND UNIVERSITY DUTIES
Prior to being Head of Department (2006-2012), Jo held departmental posts as Programme Director for the MSc in Social Research Methods and Chair of a number of core departmental committees. At University level she has been Member and Deputy Chair of the University Ethics Committee, an invited member of the Safe Surrey Group, and faculty representative on the Honorary Degrees Committee. She is currently an Academic Faculty Representative on University Senate, and a member of the LGBT group.
Professional Activities
External Examining
Jo has recently been appointed as External examiner for Edinburgh University (appointed Autumn 2012) on the MSc in Childhood Studies. Prior to that she was External Examiner for Napier University, Edinburgh (appointed 2007-2013) on the MSc Social Research Methods, and External Examiner for Kingston University (2004-2007) on the BSc Sociology degree.
International activities
Jo has a strong commitment to promoting international networks of childhood researchers, organising many international colloquia and ESA streams including Geneva (2011), Lisbon (2009), Glasgow (2007), Torun (2005), Murcia (2003), Keele (2002), Helsinki (2001), Amsterdam (1999), London (1999), Surrey (1995). Working together with Madeleine Leonard (Queen’s Belfast) and Randi Dyblie Nilsen (NTNU, Norway) she co-founded the European Sociological Association (ESA) ‘Sociology of Children and Childhood’ Research Network (RN04) in 2006, following the success of this research stream at previous ESA conferences. The ESA childhood network is the key network for European research in childhood and continues to host a significant number of papers at each conference as well as provide a forum for communication between European researchers in this field. Jo was chair of the ESA childhood research stream from 2001 to 2006, and then following adoption as a formal Research Network within the ESA, she served as Chair from 2006 to 2012. She is now a member of the organising committee for the 2013 ESA conference in Turin https://www.esa11thconference.eu/call-for-papers/research-networks/RN04
Jo was also Secretary to the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee for Childhood Studies (RC53) from 2002 to 2006. This is the key global network for childhood studies http://www.isa-sociology.org/rc53.htm.
Visiting Posts
Jo has held a number of visiting academic posts including Visiting Academic at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, funded by Das Graduiertenkolleg "Kindheitsforschung" (Graduate College for Childhood Research) in 2009, Visiting Researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Childhood Research (NOSEB) at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway in 2006, and Visiting Academic in Mixed Research Methods at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, funded by Ministry of Education scheme: La Movilidad De Profesores En Doctorados Con Mencion De Calidad in 2010. She is currently Visiting Scholar at the Research Centre ‘Childhoods.Societies’, at the University of Wuppertal in Germany for the duration of 2012-13.
Other International activity
- Invited member of external research review team for Uppsala University (May 2011)
- Member of the editorial board of Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau" (Social Sciences Review) 2011-to date
Invited papers/Keynotes
2013: ‘Thinking sociologically about children and childhood’, conference title, Athens, Greece, 12-14 April 2013
2013: ‘Childhood Studies and the Politics of Childhood revisited’, Symposium on Welfare State, Sociology of Education, Childhood Studies: Democratic Challenges and Perspectives Bergische Universitat Wuppertal, Germany. 15-16 February 2013
2012: ‘Social Competences of Children and the 'New' Childhood Studies’, Childhood Studies, Early Childhood and Early Childhood Education: Identifying the new research landscape. 3rd International Conference in Early Childhood Education, Congress Center "Karolos Papoulias", University of Ioannina, Greece. May 11th to 13th, 2012
2009: ‘Rights, Wellbeing and Sexuality in Childhood’. Paper given to ‘Children and the Good Life: New Challenges for Research on Children’, University of Bielefeld. April 2009.
2009: ‘Children’s rights and the competence/capability framework’. Paper given at the International seminar of ‘Barnehagen i endring. Inkludering i praksis’ (The Changing Kindergarten: Inclusion in Practice), Norwegian Centre for Child Research, NTNU, Nannestad, Norway. November 2009.
2008: ‘Thinking about Integration: concepts and pragmatics’. Paper given at EUROQUAL workshop, Vienna, Austria. September 2008.
2008: ‘Situating Children’s Competence’. Paper given at German Association of Educational Research Conference at the University of Dresden, Germany. March 2008.
2008: ‘Childhood Studies and the Critique Of Education?’ Paper given atBildung, Democracy and Social Change at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. February 2008.
2006: Seminar paper: ‘Children’s sleep: a window onto childhood?’ Department of Sociology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, July 2006.
2006: Seminar paper: ‘Queering childhood?’ NORSEB, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. February 2006
Grants held / awarded
Recent
ESRC: Children and Urban Resilience. Grant Holders: Will Medd (Principal Investigator) (Lancaster University ); Kate Burningham (University of Surrey); Jo Moran-Ellis (University of Surrey); Sue Tapsell (Middlesex University). Award Ref : LXXX. Awarded January 2009.
Children And Adolescent Mental Health Strategy Group, Surrey County Council and West Surrey Health Authority: Mapping services available to meet the mental health needs of children and young people with attention deficit disorder. Grant Holder: Jo Moran-Ellis with SSMR. Awarded 2007 with SSMR
Children And Adolescent Mental Health Strategy Group, Surrey County Council and West Surrey Health Authority: Mental Health Needs of Looked After Children. Grant Holder: Jo Moran-Ellis with SSMR. Awarded 2006.
Wellcome Trust: A qualitative study of public attitudes towards the governance of biomedical research. Awarded November 2005. Grant holders: Jo Moran-Ellis, Dick Shepherd (Principal Investigator), Julie Barnett and Helen Cooper.
Children And Adolescent Mental Health Strategy Group, Surrey County Council and West Surrey Health Authority: Mapping services available to meet the mental health needs of children and young people with learning disabilities. Grant Holder: Jo Moran-Ellis with SSMR. Awarded 2005
ESRC grant: Survey of Attitudes and Behaviours Towards Genomics.Grant holders: Dick Shepherd (Principal Investigator) Julie Barnett; Adrian Coyle; Chris Fife-Schaw; Jo Moran-Ellis; Vicky Senior; and Patrick Sturgis. Award Ref : L145251005 Awarded October 2002
ESRC: Investigating Practice and Process in Integrating Methodologies: A Demonstrator Project (PPIMs). Grant holders: Jo Moran-Ellis (Principal Investigator); Victoria Alexander; Ann Cronin; Jane Fielding; and Hilary Thomas. Award Ref: H333250054. Awarded July 2002
Children And Adolescent Mental Health Strategy Group, Surrey County Council and West Surrey Health Authority: Evaluation of Primary Mental Health Worker Posts in Surrey. 6 month project. Grant Holder: Jo Moran-Ellis with SSMR. Awarded January 2002
Sentencing Advisory Panel: Attitudes Towards Date Rape and Relationship Rape: A Qualitative Study.. Grant Holders: Alan Clarke and Jo Moran-Ellis with SSMR. Awarded August 2001
