Institute for Health Citizenship Mission statement The Institute for Health Citizenship is concerned with trans-disciplinary and innovative approaches

Institute for Health Citizenship

Mission statementThe Institute for Health Citizenship is concerned with trans-disciplinary and innovative approaches towards a range of contemporary topics on the interface between health, wellbeing and citizenship.


EthosWe seek to ‘trouble’ disciplinary boundaries through

trans-disciplinary critique challenging the traditional research mindset that tends to dismiss alternative perspectives on health, wellbeing and citizenship.

We aim to open up new discursive and visual spaces that facilitate inclusivity within issues of health citizenship.


Professor James AvisDirector of Research and Professor of Post-Compulsory

Education and Training.His research interests lie in post-compulsory education

and life-long learning. He has a keen interest in the political economy of this

sector and its policy contextualisation. Recent books include Issues in Post-Compulsory

Education and Training, Education, Policy and Social Justice; Teaching in Lifelong Learning.

Current writing addresses localism, governance and community in relation to education and the state and also explores issues surrounding workplace learning.


Dr. Pamela FisherSenior lecturer in Sociology.Currently working on a project with Mencap in

Kirklees.Forthcoming book co-edited with Professor Valerie

Bryson, The New Labour Experiment.Published widely in peer-reviewed journals, early

research centres upon European sociological and political topics.

PhD awarded in 2002, examined life transitions after German unification in 1990 and how these were shaped by understandings of citizenship.


Dr. Chris GiffordHead of Criminology, Politics and Sociology.A political sociologist interested in both the

theoretical and experiential dimensions of citizenship.

Published on the relationship between national and post-national citizenship and the implications this raises for issues of identity and education. Preliminary research on how health professionals learn about citizenship.

Recently completed project on multicultural, internationalism and diversity in the European higher education curricula for the European Commission - developed into a set of guidelines for the sector.


Dr. Abigail LockePrincipal Lecturer in PsychologyA qualitative, critical social scientist,

interested in issues around social and health psychology.

The arena of health whereby I study communication between health professionals and patients, considering its links to policy.

Social Sciences PhD in 2001 specialist in discursive psychology that deconstructs talk and text.

Research publications in the social, rhetorical and performative nature of discourse, in particular how messages are framed and communicated by health professionals to expectant parents.


Dr. Steve SwindellsReader in Creative Practice and ADA School

Research Leader. PhD in 2004 on ‘The Relationship between Art and

Citizenship’. Art practitioner exploring issues related to

abstraction, nothingness and post-conceptualism. Interested in how artists develop interface between the work and public reception.

2009 exhibitions in Seoul, Taipei and Bangkok in 2009, exhibited widely across Europe, North America/Canada and Asia (2002 – 2008).

Recent publications: Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Volume 2; ‘Things Artists do Anyway’, Studio Bibliotheque, Hong Kong (2008).


‘Obesity’ project rationaleHealth and wellbeing are now located within a policy

framework that emphasises individual responsibility. Within this discourse, health and wellbeing have been re-positioned as a ‘civic duty’.

Obesity increasingly linked to stigmatisation and marginalisation from mainstream citizenship. People labelled ‘obese’ discriminated against in employment amongst other activities.

Critical examination on mediation of ‘health time bomb’.


Obesity projectUrgent need to broaden the obesity debate’ from diverse

disciplinary perspectives.

The ‘obesity epidemic’ relationship to healthy eating and body weight in education. Critical review of 1999 the National Healthy School Standard (NHSS). Schools and colleges sites for the promotion of ‘successful’ citizenship.

Healthy Schools Project currently extended to Colleges

of Further Education. Work with stakeholder New College Huddersfield - forerunner in this initiative.


Obesity projectThe virtuous citizen is projected to strive towards good

health and the maintenance of a healthy body weight.

The dominant policy message is reflected in and endorsed by media representations relating to body weight, image and, in response to the moral panic relating to an ‘epidemic’ of obesity.


Obesity project Aims

Research understandings of healthy eating, body weight and obesity from diverse disciplinary perspectives; including sociological, psychological, semiotic, visual-culture, nutritional and educational;

Explore the extent to which teacher trainees subscribe to dominant health messages and how they perceive their role as educators in relation to these;


Obesity project Aims

Investigate whether trainee teachers represent their personal lifestyle and eating practices in response to dominant health messages;

Draw together debates from the sociology of

health and illness, the social psychology of health, semiotic analysis and visual culture, nursing and medicine, nutrition and education.


MethodsMedia analysis of conceptualisations of obesity. Second stage data collection, visual images and

photovoice facilitate fieldwork interviews with trainee teachers in Colleges of Further Education.

Focus groups to investigate common perceptions and discourses around obesity.


OutputsTwo year project will produce a number

of research outputs; peer-reviewed journal articles, research papers, seminar programmes, end of project conference, project website, photography exhibition and a billboard exhibition.


Selected Future projectsEuthanasia, right to die discourses

Doing ‘being positive’ in ill-health

Designer babies, genetic modifications


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Documents

Institute for Health Citizenship Mission statement The Institute for Health Citizenship is concerned with trans-disciplinary and innovative approaches