Category: Children and families

Dr Gözde Doğanyılmaz-Burger, Senior Research Coordinator at the University of Bristol, reflects on the sessions she chaired at the first International Child and Family Conference held in Bristol on 17-19 June, and the questions those sessions set out to answer:

• How are children’s voices recognised (or dismissed) in legal, policy and everyday decisions that shape their family lives?

• How do caregiving expectations, policy design, and labour markets affect family life and gender equality?

 

Session 1: Children’s agency, participation, and family transitions

On day two of the conference, I had the pleasure of chairing and presenting in a powerful session on Children’s Agency and Participation, a topic close to my heart and the focus of my PhD research.

The session featured four studies that offered unique insights into how children’s voices are heard (or silenced) in matters that deeply affect them:

Children’s experiences of parental separation
Dr Susan Kay-Flowers explored 25 years of international research on children’s experiences of parental separation, highlighting ethical dilemmas around participation and voice.

Father-child contact after domestic violence
Prof Simon Lapierre and Ms Naomi Abrahams shared findings from Canada on children’s participation in decisions about father-child contact after domestic violence, proposing information as a critical fifth dimension to Lundy’s model.

Children’s rights and family law
Prof Maebh Harding and Dr Jakub Pawliczak challenged us to rethink constitutional conservatism in Ireland and Poland and asked whether children’s rights can drive more inclusive family law.

Communication during divorce
And I presented my research comparing young people’s experiences in Türkiye and England, focusing on how communication (or lack of it) during divorce shapes their emotional wellbeing, agency and rights.

Each presentation sparked important questions about children’s legal, psychological and emotional needs, and how research, policy and practice can respond more meaningfully.

Thank you to the presenters and all who joined the discussion. It was a joy to be part of this international conversation on centring children’s voices in family transitions.

It was extra special to share my findings on Turkish and English young people’s experiences of divorce-related communication, and to have my main supervisor, Prof Debbie Watson, whose guidance has been invaluable throughout my PhD, in the room, along with my mum Prof Nesrin Özsoy-Bür, who travelled all the way from Türkiye to support me (especially with childcare!).

 

Session 2: Care, family policy, and the everyday experiences of work-life balance

On the final day of the conference, I had the privilege of chairing another incredible session, this time focused on care, family policy, and the everyday experiences of work-life balance.

It was a joy to listen to such rich, thought-provoking presentations that explored how policy, labour markets, and social expectations shape caregiving, while also highlighting the voices, presence, and roles of children and families so often left out of mainstream narratives.

Caregiving responsibilities and gender inequality
Ms Curran McSwigan (Deputy Director of the Economic Program at Third Way, USA) presented a powerful analysis of how caregiving responsibilities continue to drive gender inequality in the US labour market, particularly for women without a college degree. Her research reminded us how the absence of robust childcare and paid leave policies contributes to ongoing cycles of disadvantage for women and children.

Work-family reconciliation policies
Dr Manisha Mathews (University of Birmingham, UK) critically examined the UK’s work-family reconciliation policies, arguing that current policy design still reflects the “male breadwinner” model and limits fathers’ ability to participate in childcare. Her comparison with the Nordic model underscored the value of long, well-paid leave for both parents in promoting children’s cognitive and emotional wellbeing.

Home as both the family and work hub
Dr Jana Mikats (Webster Vienna Private University, Austria) introduced the concept of dense, intimate knowledge, referring to children’s deep, nuanced awareness of their parents’ work when that work is done at home. Her ethnographic study of Austrian families challenged traditional boundaries between “work” and “family”, offering a fresh lens on intimacy, co-presence, and children’s everyday lives in digitally shaped households.

In our discussion, we reflected on how policy and discourse often centre around nuclear, heterosexual, two-parent families, excluding the lived realities of single-parent households, blended families, grandparents, friends, and broader networks of care. There was a clear call to recognise and support the many ways care is provided beyond dominant family models.

I’m grateful to have chaired such a thoughtful and intersectional session and for the opportunity to connect research across disciplines and contexts.

 

The first International Child and Family Conference took place at the University of Bristol from 17 to 19 June 2025. It brought together experts in childhood and family to explore a range of current themes across its three days. Within this, the three keynote speeches focused on some of the key areas from a research and policy perspective.

Dr Gözde Doğanyılmaz-Burger, Senior Research Coordinator at the University of Bristol, gives a summary of each of the inspiring and thought-provoking keynote speeches at the conference.

 

Prof Esther Dermott on the impact of digital technology

We kicked off the International Child and Family Conference 2025 with a thought-provoking keynote by Prof Esther Dermott (University of Bristol Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences), who challenged us to rethink how digital technologies are shaping families, relationships and parenting.

She asked us to consider:

• What does co-presence look like in a world of constant digital communication?
• How do state systems, private companies, and invisible data processes (like predictive analytics) influence parenting and family life?
• Are our existing social science tools enough, or do we need new methods to make sense of a digitally entangled world?

From Yondr phone pouches promoting “smart-free” childhoods to Studybugs apps tracking school absence for health outcomes, Prof Dermott highlighted the double-edged nature of digital tools: supportive on one hand, but deeply entangled in systems of oversight and inequality on the other.

Prof Dermott encouraged us to shift away from narrow ideas of “good parenting” and move toward a relational approach, recognising the complex, dynamic interactions between children, parents, institutions, and technologies.

An inspiring way to start the conference, with big questions to think about over the next two days!

 

Mr James Bury on the care system in England

On day 2, we were pleased to welcome James Bury, Interim Managing Director of CoramBAAF and Coram Family & Childcare (UK), as our second keynote speaker. He offered a thought-provoking reflection on the care system in England.

Drawing on his practice experience, Mr Bury questioned whether the complex systems we’ve built truly align with children’s needs and how we can better support permanence through psychological, legal, and physical stability.

He highlighted four key pressures:

• Declining foster carer numbers
• Challenges in adopter recruitment
• Complexities in post-adoption contact
• The impact of education and mental health support on placement stability

Mr Bury urged us to innovate, simplify, and collaborate, ensuring our systems are responsive to the real journeys of children and families.

 

Prof Tatek Abebe on the ‘commons agenda’

We began the final day of the conference with a powerful keynote from Prof Tatek Abebe (NTNU), Centre Convenor and an expert in childhood studies and development research with a focus on African contexts.

Prof Abebe drew us into a “commons agenda”, a perspective that sees children not just as individuals but as active contributors to collective life in their communities through social labour, care, and cultural practices.

Prof Abebe explored how children’s “living labour” in domestic work, communal exchanges, and even music activism creates value, resists structural violence, and forms part of shared social economies.

He introduced Mahiberawi Nuro community networks in Ethiopia as living examples of communal support systems beyond state provision, embodying what he called “commoning”.

He advocated for ecologically regenerative, decolonial research methods that foreground children’s relational existence, encouraging us to rethink childhood studies through a moral, institutional, and ecological lens.

Prof Abebe’s keynote challenged us to expand how we understand childhood, embracing collective responsibility, ethical solidarity, and research that honours children’s active roles in shaping community life.

 

Thank you to our three keynote speakers for their fascinating insights which gave all of us attending the opportunity to reflect on these topic areas and on our understanding of the issues, and the implications of these, in relation to our own areas of research and policy.