Children, Youth and Families

At the forefront of establishing children’s geographies, our research explores formal and informal spaces of education and childhood experiences.

In recent years staff have held key international leadership positions including Chair of the RGS-IBG Children, Youth and Families Research Group and Editor-in-Chief of Children’s Geographies. Our work is currently challenging the liberal founding conceptions of children’s geographies via post-structuralist feminist critique, pioneering a politically-progressive conceptual framework.

RGS Gill Memorial Award

The 2020 RGS Gill Memorial Award for outstanding early career research in human geography went to Helena Pimlott-Wilson, and her research investigating the school-to-work ambitions and family life aspirations of young people.

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Tutored Childhoods: Parenting Cultures, Youth Transition and Social Mobility

Combining insights from Geography, Sociology and Education, this Leverhulme Trust funded research into private tuition is examining: (i) sociospatially differentiated parenting cultures that drive demand and sway social mobility; (ii) tuition’s implications for contemporary childhood and family life; and (iii) young people’s educational strategies and transitions to adulthood.

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Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda

This £0.8M ESRC/GCRF funded interdisciplinary project is bringing together a team of UK and Ugandan researchers, Ugandan and international civil society organisations and young refugees to build knowledge of the relationships between volunteering and the livelihoods of displaced young people to then develop resources and activities for organisations working with young refugees as well as wider volunteer engaging organisations.

RYVU website

International Perspectives on Childhood and Youth in Hard Times

Co-edited by Helena Pimlott-Wilson this new book looks at the impact of neoliberalism, austerity and global economic crisis on children and young people. This latest book is the follow-up to Austerity Across Europe - Lived Experiences of Economic Crises.

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Children and COVID-19

Louise Holt, Editor-in-Chief of Children’s Geographies, has co-edited an important global Viewpoints series ‘Children living in pandemic times’. Louise’s own contribution focuses on ‘Children’s geographies of COVID-19 in the UK’ as part of this timely collection which covers viewpoints from 11 countries.

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