Centre for Parenting Culture Studies (CPCS)

Description

The Centre for Parenting Culture Studies (CPCS) is based in the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research at the University of Kent. The Centre is interdisciplinary, and its Associates work in other Schools at Kent, including Law and Psychology, and at other Universities in the UK and internationally.

While CPCS associates have diverse research interests, the Centre's common view is that child-rearing as a social activity needs to be distinguished from ‘parenting’ and the culture that surrounds it. Through its work, the Centre has sought to show how the role and meaning of parenthood has changed in recent years. Child-rearing has expanded to encompass a growing range of activities that were not previously seen as an obligatory dimension of this task. CPCS associates have identified this emerging trend as exercising a decisive impact on the mothering role and more broadly on child-rearing; parenting culture in this form has a profound impact on the constitution of mothering and fathering identity as well on the relationship amongst parents.

How mothers and fathers manage and perform these identities is one of the themes running through the explorations of colleagues involved with CPCS. The expansion of the child-rearing role has also encouraged the belief that ‘parenting’ is a problematic sphere of social life. Indeed, ‘parenting’ is almost always discussed as a social problem. Many social actors have sought to turn child-rearing into an object of policymaking encouraging the emergence of the activity ‘parenting’. The causes and effects of this policy turn is another central area of CPCS's research.

Offers funding

No, this infrastructure does not provide funding.

Founding year

2010

Contact details

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University affiliation(s)

University of Kent
Canterbury