Charlotte Morris - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Charlotte Morris
Sociological Research Online, 2015
This paper explores experiences and expectations of equality within the intimacy narratives of UK... more This paper explores experiences and expectations of equality within the intimacy narratives of UK single mothers. A perceived lack of equality was often cited by participants as a contributing factor in relationship breakdown, contradicting notions of increasing democracy ( Giddens, 1992 ). For those who had grown up aspiring to egalitarian relationships, experiences of inequality engendered disappointment. Yet narratives simultaneously contained longings for the perceived certainty of traditional gendered roles associated with more stable, committed, enduring relationships - an ideal model of intimacy against which intimate lives were measured. Narratives were therefore marked by ambivalence as participants navigated their way through different understandings of intimacy, while managing challenging situations. While equality in intimate relationships was viewed as a possibility by some, participants often felt it was out of reach due to a lack of suitable potential partners. For ot...
Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 2021
Purpose This paper aims to present the critical reflections of three women implementers formerly ... more Purpose This paper aims to present the critical reflections of three women implementers formerly working in projects that seek to support the mental health and well-being (MHW) of postgraduate researchers (PGRs), which has become a recent focus for UK researchers and policymakers. The paper offers an experience-based perspective on tensions in PGR-MHW project implementation by providing personal accounts of several social dilemmas the authors encountered. From reflecting on experiences, the authors derived recommendations for mitigating such dilemmas when designing and delivering future projects. Design/methodology/approach First, the experiences of dilemmas as female project implementers of PGR-MHW projects were recalled, listed and discussed and identified broad overarching themes. Second, one dilemma for each of the three themes was fleshed out according to the ones that carried meaning for how the role was personally experienced. Third, what the accounts of dilemmas meant for pr...
Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 2021
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing i... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing in the light of renewed concerns about the mental health and wellbeing this group of learners. It attends to postgraduates’ subjective wellbeing, identifying ways in which this is intertwined with a sense of belonging. Belonging is situated in relation to the social domains of postgraduate experiences. This paper seeks to contribute in-depth understandings of postgraduate experiences, to make recommendations for practice and to identify fruitful paths for further theorisation and research. Design/methodology/approach Two qualitative data sets situated in UK higher education are drawn on here: firstly, longitudinal qualitative data entailing 33 narrative interviews and written reflections of doctoral researchers were collected as part of a phenomenological study of doctoral learning. Secondly, interview data from 20 postgraduates (including masters, professional doctorates and PhD research...
Romantic Relationships in a Time of ‘Cold Intimacies’, 2019
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Teaching in Higher Education, 2021
This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a mo... more This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, preempt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' antiintellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice.
Families, Relationships and Societies, 2018
This article explores friendship as an aspect of the intimate lives of heterosexual single mother... more This article explores friendship as an aspect of the intimate lives of heterosexual single mothers. It has been argued that friendship holds an increasing significance in intimate lives, against a backdrop of increasing choice and declining emphasis on kinship ties. In this context, friendship has been viewed as displacing the centrality of heteronormative romantic relationships and, in this research, friendships were often accorded a higher status. In this narrative study, participants related shifts in their personal landscapes of intimacy on becoming single mothers. Friendships were narrated as multifaceted, offering practical and emotional support, alongside acceptance. Foregrounding friendship provided possibilities for positive identifications in a context in which single mothers are often subject to judgements. While friendships were not usually described as an alternative to couple-centred family life – which retained its status as the ideal intimate form – for some, single ...
Feminism & Psychology, 2019
This article discusses the formation of shame in a group of white heterosexual British women orig... more This article discusses the formation of shame in a group of white heterosexual British women originally from middle-class backgrounds. Narrative interviews convey how participants perceive their lives to have been “spoiled” and stigmatised through becoming single mothers. They articulate perceptions of how their lives have fallen short of idealised heteronormative, middle-class trajectories of neoliberal success and adopt a range of narrative strategies to counter this, informed by the politics of shame in relation to single motherhood in contemporary Britain.
Journal of LGBT Youth, 2019
Drawing on contemporary theories of intimacy, this study explores the intimacy narratives and pra... more Drawing on contemporary theories of intimacy, this study explores the intimacy narratives and practices of single mothers at a time of, it is argued, social and cultural change in terms of intimacy. Narrative interviews of twenty-four single mothers draw out layers of personal, social and cultural complexity in terms of understanding, experiencing and making choices about intimacy in their everyday lives. The concept of 'intimacy scripts' (developed from Simon and Gagnon, 1973) is deployed to explore how single mothers develop blueprints for their intimate lives, drawing on a range of cultural, social and personal possibilities for intimate practices. This process is viewed within a wider context of gendered power relations and material constraints. Participants were often affected by stigmatizing depictions of single mothers and resisted these through their narratives which tended to emphasize how they had not chosen single motherhood. Indeed the transition to single motherhood was often experienced as traumatic, marked by shame, disappointment and loss. Perceptions of increased fluidity and the possibility for experimentation around intimacy are discernible, chiming with individualisation theorists (Bauman, 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1992). However, basic economic survival often took precedence over the reflexive organisation of intimate lives (Jamieson, 1998). Intimacy narratives were unsettled, in turn depicting opportunities for intimate experimentations and invoking nostalgia for more traditional intimate forms, demonstrating ambivalence and liminality. Heteronormative ideals of coupledom, romance and traditional family remained aspirational for many, although the importance of equality in relationships was also highlighted. Yet many participants struggled to find suitable male partners and were aware of inequalities and the risks associated with re-partnering, often based on negative experiences. Intimate choices were shaped and constrained by socioeconomic positioning; the protection of dependents; maintenance of their family unit; continuing gendered expectations and the ongoing centrality of heteronormative romantic couple-centred intimate practices.
Assessment
ALT JOURNAL NUMBER 5: SPRING 2009 19 This project investigates how doctoral students make 'l... more ALT JOURNAL NUMBER 5: SPRING 2009 19 This project investigates how doctoral students make 'learning leaps' to recognise and cross conceptual and skills thresholds in their research and ways in which they can be best supported to do so. It responds to current national ...
The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education
Gender and Education, 2021
In recent years, gender mainstreaming has increasingly been positioned as a central policy impera... more In recent years, gender mainstreaming has increasingly been positioned as a central policy imperative in many countries. At the same time, gender as a focus of academic study has come under attack in the USA and Europe, and some suggest there to be a crisis in feminist teaching. This renders it vital to explore in the context of contemporary higher education where gender and feminist content and approaches are present and absent. This research set out to develop insight through a cross-disciplinary, qualitative case study including documentary analysis alongside staff and student interviews. Findings highlighted contradictions, including that people often claim to champion gender and diversity generally whilst simultaneously rejecting responsibility for the same issues in their own teaching. These insights identify challenges, including attribution of responsibility for inequalities around the representation of gender as belonging elsewhere, with others, in terms of both teaching spaces and temporality.
Journal of Gender Studies, 2021
Higher education practitioners concerned with addressing gender on the curriculum inevitably come... more Higher education practitioners concerned with addressing gender on the curriculum inevitably come up against a complex range of institutional barriers. Research presented here, drawing on in-depth staff interviews, sheds light on such 'gender work' and the challenges and its complexities in the current moment in the UK context. Through an institutional case study, we identify multiple ongoing and contemporary challenges arising for those engaged in this work. A constellation of intersecting obstacles are elucidated, wherein gender, far from being 'mainstreamed', is continually side-lined and deprioritized due to being positioned as peripheral, optional and of questionable value in the neoliberal episteme. Yet with urgent challenges inherent in gender equity and social justice education in the contemporary socio-political context, we contend that addressing such barriers and moving the gender mainstreaming agenda forwards is crucial. Renewed emphases on curricula may yet offer an opportunity to reopen discussions, reimagine and reinvigorate gender mainstreaming.
Working One-to-One with Students, 2013
Working one-to-one with students. Wisker, Gina, Exley, Kate, Antoniou, Maria, Ridley, Pauline and... more Working one-to-one with students. Wisker, Gina, Exley, Kate, Antoniou, Maria, Ridley, Pauline and Morris, Charlotte (2008) Working one-to-one with students. Key Guides to Effective Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge, UK. ISBN 9781415365309. ...
The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education
Sociological Research Online, 2015
This paper explores experiences and expectations of equality within the intimacy narratives of UK... more This paper explores experiences and expectations of equality within the intimacy narratives of UK single mothers. A perceived lack of equality was often cited by participants as a contributing factor in relationship breakdown, contradicting notions of increasing democracy ( Giddens, 1992 ). For those who had grown up aspiring to egalitarian relationships, experiences of inequality engendered disappointment. Yet narratives simultaneously contained longings for the perceived certainty of traditional gendered roles associated with more stable, committed, enduring relationships - an ideal model of intimacy against which intimate lives were measured. Narratives were therefore marked by ambivalence as participants navigated their way through different understandings of intimacy, while managing challenging situations. While equality in intimate relationships was viewed as a possibility by some, participants often felt it was out of reach due to a lack of suitable potential partners. For ot...
Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 2021
Purpose This paper aims to present the critical reflections of three women implementers formerly ... more Purpose This paper aims to present the critical reflections of three women implementers formerly working in projects that seek to support the mental health and well-being (MHW) of postgraduate researchers (PGRs), which has become a recent focus for UK researchers and policymakers. The paper offers an experience-based perspective on tensions in PGR-MHW project implementation by providing personal accounts of several social dilemmas the authors encountered. From reflecting on experiences, the authors derived recommendations for mitigating such dilemmas when designing and delivering future projects. Design/methodology/approach First, the experiences of dilemmas as female project implementers of PGR-MHW projects were recalled, listed and discussed and identified broad overarching themes. Second, one dilemma for each of the three themes was fleshed out according to the ones that carried meaning for how the role was personally experienced. Third, what the accounts of dilemmas meant for pr...
Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 2021
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing i... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing in the light of renewed concerns about the mental health and wellbeing this group of learners. It attends to postgraduates’ subjective wellbeing, identifying ways in which this is intertwined with a sense of belonging. Belonging is situated in relation to the social domains of postgraduate experiences. This paper seeks to contribute in-depth understandings of postgraduate experiences, to make recommendations for practice and to identify fruitful paths for further theorisation and research. Design/methodology/approach Two qualitative data sets situated in UK higher education are drawn on here: firstly, longitudinal qualitative data entailing 33 narrative interviews and written reflections of doctoral researchers were collected as part of a phenomenological study of doctoral learning. Secondly, interview data from 20 postgraduates (including masters, professional doctorates and PhD research...
Romantic Relationships in a Time of ‘Cold Intimacies’, 2019
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Teaching in Higher Education, 2021
This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a mo... more This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, preempt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' antiintellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice.
Families, Relationships and Societies, 2018
This article explores friendship as an aspect of the intimate lives of heterosexual single mother... more This article explores friendship as an aspect of the intimate lives of heterosexual single mothers. It has been argued that friendship holds an increasing significance in intimate lives, against a backdrop of increasing choice and declining emphasis on kinship ties. In this context, friendship has been viewed as displacing the centrality of heteronormative romantic relationships and, in this research, friendships were often accorded a higher status. In this narrative study, participants related shifts in their personal landscapes of intimacy on becoming single mothers. Friendships were narrated as multifaceted, offering practical and emotional support, alongside acceptance. Foregrounding friendship provided possibilities for positive identifications in a context in which single mothers are often subject to judgements. While friendships were not usually described as an alternative to couple-centred family life – which retained its status as the ideal intimate form – for some, single ...
Feminism & Psychology, 2019
This article discusses the formation of shame in a group of white heterosexual British women orig... more This article discusses the formation of shame in a group of white heterosexual British women originally from middle-class backgrounds. Narrative interviews convey how participants perceive their lives to have been “spoiled” and stigmatised through becoming single mothers. They articulate perceptions of how their lives have fallen short of idealised heteronormative, middle-class trajectories of neoliberal success and adopt a range of narrative strategies to counter this, informed by the politics of shame in relation to single motherhood in contemporary Britain.
Journal of LGBT Youth, 2019
Drawing on contemporary theories of intimacy, this study explores the intimacy narratives and pra... more Drawing on contemporary theories of intimacy, this study explores the intimacy narratives and practices of single mothers at a time of, it is argued, social and cultural change in terms of intimacy. Narrative interviews of twenty-four single mothers draw out layers of personal, social and cultural complexity in terms of understanding, experiencing and making choices about intimacy in their everyday lives. The concept of 'intimacy scripts' (developed from Simon and Gagnon, 1973) is deployed to explore how single mothers develop blueprints for their intimate lives, drawing on a range of cultural, social and personal possibilities for intimate practices. This process is viewed within a wider context of gendered power relations and material constraints. Participants were often affected by stigmatizing depictions of single mothers and resisted these through their narratives which tended to emphasize how they had not chosen single motherhood. Indeed the transition to single motherhood was often experienced as traumatic, marked by shame, disappointment and loss. Perceptions of increased fluidity and the possibility for experimentation around intimacy are discernible, chiming with individualisation theorists (Bauman, 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1992). However, basic economic survival often took precedence over the reflexive organisation of intimate lives (Jamieson, 1998). Intimacy narratives were unsettled, in turn depicting opportunities for intimate experimentations and invoking nostalgia for more traditional intimate forms, demonstrating ambivalence and liminality. Heteronormative ideals of coupledom, romance and traditional family remained aspirational for many, although the importance of equality in relationships was also highlighted. Yet many participants struggled to find suitable male partners and were aware of inequalities and the risks associated with re-partnering, often based on negative experiences. Intimate choices were shaped and constrained by socioeconomic positioning; the protection of dependents; maintenance of their family unit; continuing gendered expectations and the ongoing centrality of heteronormative romantic couple-centred intimate practices.
Assessment
ALT JOURNAL NUMBER 5: SPRING 2009 19 This project investigates how doctoral students make 'l... more ALT JOURNAL NUMBER 5: SPRING 2009 19 This project investigates how doctoral students make 'learning leaps' to recognise and cross conceptual and skills thresholds in their research and ways in which they can be best supported to do so. It responds to current national ...
The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education
Gender and Education, 2021
In recent years, gender mainstreaming has increasingly been positioned as a central policy impera... more In recent years, gender mainstreaming has increasingly been positioned as a central policy imperative in many countries. At the same time, gender as a focus of academic study has come under attack in the USA and Europe, and some suggest there to be a crisis in feminist teaching. This renders it vital to explore in the context of contemporary higher education where gender and feminist content and approaches are present and absent. This research set out to develop insight through a cross-disciplinary, qualitative case study including documentary analysis alongside staff and student interviews. Findings highlighted contradictions, including that people often claim to champion gender and diversity generally whilst simultaneously rejecting responsibility for the same issues in their own teaching. These insights identify challenges, including attribution of responsibility for inequalities around the representation of gender as belonging elsewhere, with others, in terms of both teaching spaces and temporality.
Journal of Gender Studies, 2021
Higher education practitioners concerned with addressing gender on the curriculum inevitably come... more Higher education practitioners concerned with addressing gender on the curriculum inevitably come up against a complex range of institutional barriers. Research presented here, drawing on in-depth staff interviews, sheds light on such 'gender work' and the challenges and its complexities in the current moment in the UK context. Through an institutional case study, we identify multiple ongoing and contemporary challenges arising for those engaged in this work. A constellation of intersecting obstacles are elucidated, wherein gender, far from being 'mainstreamed', is continually side-lined and deprioritized due to being positioned as peripheral, optional and of questionable value in the neoliberal episteme. Yet with urgent challenges inherent in gender equity and social justice education in the contemporary socio-political context, we contend that addressing such barriers and moving the gender mainstreaming agenda forwards is crucial. Renewed emphases on curricula may yet offer an opportunity to reopen discussions, reimagine and reinvigorate gender mainstreaming.
Working One-to-One with Students, 2013
Working one-to-one with students. Wisker, Gina, Exley, Kate, Antoniou, Maria, Ridley, Pauline and... more Working one-to-one with students. Wisker, Gina, Exley, Kate, Antoniou, Maria, Ridley, Pauline and Morris, Charlotte (2008) Working one-to-one with students. Key Guides to Effective Teaching in Higher Education. Routledge, UK. ISBN 9781415365309. ...
The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education