Dr Jane McCarthy

Professional biography

Qualifications

I have a BA Hons in Sociology (First Class) from the University of Reading, an MSc in Advanced Social and Educational Research Methods from The Open University, and a PhD in Sociology from South Bank Polytechnic/CNAA. I also have a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, London University, double distinctions.

Besides my position at the Open University, I am also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading. Previous honoray positions have included a Visiting Professorship at the University of Reading, and an appointment as Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Institute of Education.

Professional affiliations

British Sociological Association; International Sociological Association; Childhood Bereavement Network; Women’s Workshop for Qualitative Family/Household Research; Association for the Study of Death in Society. I was a Publications Director and Trustee for the British Sociological Association 2017-18; a trustee for Winston's Wish, a national childhood bereavement charity from 2017-23; and editorial board member of Bereavement Care, later relaunched as Bereavement: Journal of Grief and Responses to Death  2009-2024

Current professional roles include:

• member of the Advisory Board for the Childhood Bereavement Network;
• external examiner, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – University of Medicine and Health Sciences 2023-6;
• member of Climate Psychology Alliance decolonising working group
• member of Community Voices network, London

Research interests

For some years now, my current work has been centrally focused on decolonising death and its continuing aftermath in the lives of the living (more commonly known by the more limited terms 'bereavement and grief'). More recently this has been extended to consider its significance for the climate and ecological emergency,as co-PI for an Open Society Challenge on Existential Dis/Connections, whjch has been developed in conjunction with the WELS Open Thanatology group.. This work builds on my sociological research over four decades concerning people's family lives and relationships, notably in regard to children and young people, with a particular focus on death and its aftermath . My longstanding theoretical interests are concerned with diverse experiences and forms of (primarily human) relationality across global and local contexts, including aspects of emotions and embodiment. I am particularly interested in feminist, international, anthropological and historical work around these themes, with long-standing interests in the meanings of 'family' and individuality, connectedness, relationality and autonomy.  Methodologically, I favour open-ended qualitative research, with a focus on the ways in which people understand their own everyday lives, and the implications for policy and professional practices. Earlier projects I have undertaken with funding from the ESRC, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust have used a sociological focus to research: mothers with an eldest child aged 7; the family lives of young people aged 16-18; parents and children in step-families; bereavement and loss in young people's lives; family deaths in Senegal. My research in recent years has been particularly framed by the following:

1. I have a particular interest in understanding relationality at a time of death and its continuing aftermath in the lives of the living. Ongoing work concerns a focus on diversity , decolonisation, racism and the deconstruction of whiteness, including multiple conference presentations and organisation of conference panels.  Working with colleagues Dr Berenice Golding (University of Huddersfield) and Dr Sukhbinder Hamilton (University of Portsmouth) we have been developing an innovative methodology based on collaborative auto-ethnographic conversations.Earlier work included a major literature review concerning young people and bereavement, culminating in several publications and a number of dissemination events: see Young People, Bereavement and Loss: Disruptive Transitions. In recent years I have been involved with researching death in family lives in urban Senegal, West Africa, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Professor Ruth Evans at the University of Reading, with a report available via open access, and several journal and chapter publications published and in progress: http://www.reading.ac.uk/geographyandenvironmentalscience/research/ges-leverhulme.aspx.
2. In 2010 I organised a two day international Colloquium on Family Troubles? Exploring Changes and Challenges in the Family Lives of Children and Young People, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of York and London South Bank University. An edited collection with Policy Press was published in 2014 under this title, and the framework has been taken forward in various contexts since then, including events at the University of Reading, September 2015, and the International Sociological Association in Vienna, July 2016, leading to three special issues of journals in the UK and the US. For further details please see http://www.open.ac.uk/ccig/research/projects/family-troubles. The special journal publications include: Sociological Research Online,  Journal of Family Issues, and Children’s Geographies. My own work has focused particularly on children’s family troubles in diverse global contexts.
3. Recent international interests have also extended to the lives and relationships of children in China, working with colleagues at UCL Institute of Education in the UK, and Renmin University and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China, including aspects of the institutionalisation of childhood and children’s family lives,.

Teaching interests

I retired from teaching at the Open University in July 2015, where I was a Reader in Family Studies, teaching postgraduate research methods, and undergraduate social policy. Before joining The Open University in 2001, I worked at Oxford Brookes University where my teaching responsibilities included family sociology and family research (undergraduate and postgraduate), and contemporary sociological theory.

Impact and engagement

See the link at the side for public engagement work for Young People, Bereavement and Loss, and for the dissemination activities of the Leverhulme project Death in the Family in Urban Senegal, see http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/deathinthefamilyinsenegal/ 

I currently work with a variety of informal groups and contacts focused on people affected by death in their family networks and communities. I helped to initiate an Open University Knowledge Transfer collaboration with the UK childhood bereavement charity Winston's Wish.

External collaborations

I regularly undertake reviews of work for a variety of academic journals and funding bodies. My research projects entail regular collaborative work with academics across the UK and beyond, particularly the University of Reading, University of Bath, University of Westminster, and UCL Institute of Education London. 

International links

The Leverhulme funded project, Death in the Family in Urban Senegal is linked to the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar.

Work around childhood in China was linked to the University of Renmin, Beijing Normal University, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

The work on bereavement and the continuing aftermath of death, and on Family Troubles more broadly. has involved a network of academics spread across Europe, the USA, and Africa.