Novella, Families and Food: Methodological Innovations

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council, ES/I025936/1,
PI Professor Ann Phoenix, Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education
Total Value: £1,316,440
Description: The habitual practices of families are frequently taken for granted, but orientation to the social world and what people do are (at least partly) negotiated within families. 'Disconnections' between people's narratives and actions also tell us about their identities, values and possible future actions. By analysing narratives and practices in relation to the Parenting Identities and Practices, Families and Food: Methodological Innovations, and Family Lives and the Environment, NOVELLA intends to interrogate the link between what people do and what they say they do; analyse the ways in which family members understand their practices and document, and make accessible, the process of conducting secondary narrative analysis and matching data across a range of datasets. Research Methods The three interrelated studies apply narrative methods in different ways and link these with other methods, using existing qualitative data sets in combination with other data and methods. Together, they will deliver innovation, in deriving new methodological insights into how to address the 'disconnect' between behaviour and constructed meaning in understanding habitual practice and providing knowledge about families' habitual everyday practices and their understandings of, and feelings about, these. The research is predominantly based on secondary analysis of data sets as well as the collection of new data in the study of 'Family Lives and the Environment', where currently available datasets do not address this issue. Another study will involve the collection of new data, focusing on parenting identities and practices analysed from asynchronous electronic interviews and online ethnography drawing on parenting discussion groups.

https://youtu.be/o_ezMGvpm0A