Sara Bragg
Biographic Data
| ID | 186932 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sara Bragg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sara |
| FAMILY NAME | Bragg |
| SIGNATURE | BRAGG S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Open University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0377-5843 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Man-i-pulation? Becoming creative with the ‘information folds’ of post-digital youth masculinity assemblages
This article explores how masculinity assemblages are composed within postdigital youth landscapes where gender is in a state of epistemic crisis and the digital is assumed to operate primarily as a coercive force. Building on queer and feminist posthuman praxis, we conceptualize the postdigital through Laura Marks’ information fold alongside Celia Lury’s notion of platformization and problem space where we share a compositional methodology that …
More than toxic masculinities: Engaging masculinity assemblages through creative research and pedagogies
This article contests a tendency in popular debates and some research about ‘toxic’ masculinities to flatten complexity by describing them in terms (‘misogyny’, ‘sexism’) that take for granted their meaning for and effects on young people. To counter such reifications, we consider data from creative participatory youth research and an interview with a sexuality educator to open up more nuanced understandings of masculinities and pedagogies. Our a…
Attune, animate and amplify: Creating youth voice assemblages in pARTicipatory sexuality education research
This paper explores the politics and praxis of ‘youth voice assemblages’ in an exploratory and pARTicipatory research project where 125 young people (aged 11–18) from England, Scotland and Wales shared what and how they are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality. Creative methods enabled us to ‘attune’ to this learning and generate ‘darta’ (arts‐based data). We then ‘animated’ these darta as dartaphacts (creative objects) including films…
Research ethics in social science research during health pandemics: What can we learn from Covid-19 experiences
The COVID-19 pandemic posed many ethical and practical challenges for academic research. Some of these have been documented, particularly in relation to health research, but less attention has been paid to the dilemmas encountered by educational and social science research. Given that pandemics are predicted to be more frequent, it is vital to understand how to continue crucial research in schools and other learning communities. This article ther…
Enacting whole‐school relationships and sexuality education in England: Context matters
Evidence from intervention evaluations suggests that achieving meaningful and lasting social, behavioural and attitudinal change from relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in schools requires more than just a curriculum. Whole‐school approaches appear particularly promising since they work at multiple levels. For instance, they may: engage with carers, communities and local services; address iniquitous cultures and norms; change school p…
Dilemmas of school-based relationships and sexuality education for and about consent
In 2018, reflecting in this journal on the arrival of the ‘age of consent’ into sexuality education, Jen Gilbert questioned what would happen to a concept drawn in part from legal contexts, but partly also driven by the passion of feminist activists, when it met the demands and logics – the learning outcomes and lesson plans – of the classroom. This article offers one response, drawing on qualitative data from two whole-school sexual health progr…
The Future of Childhood Studies and Children & Society
As editors of Children & Society, we are delighted to introduce a themed section comprised of three papers by leading figures in Childhood Studies — Alan Prout, Spyros Spyrou and Nigel Patrick Thomas. Their papers have been developed from keynote presentations at the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth’s 6th International Conference titled, ‘The Social, the Biological and the Material Child’, which took place at the University of Sheffiel…
‘More than boy, girl, male, female’: Exploring young people’s views on gender diversity within and beyond school contexts
This paper explores the views of young people aged 12–14 on gender diversity, drawing upon school-based qualitative data from a study conducted in England in 2015–2016. Although earlier feminist and queer research in schools often found evidence of variable local gender cultures and gender non-conformity, we argue that the contemporary context, with its increasing global awareness of gender diversity, offers young people significant new ways of l…
Gender, sex and children's play
Children's play, gender, and sexuality continues to be a fraught subject, frequently debated in the popular media, in academic texts, and indeed by parents, carers and professionals. Jacky Kilvingt
Considerate, convivial and capacious? Finding a language to capture ethos in 'creative' schools
Concepts of school ‘ethos’ or ‘culture’ have been widely debated in education since the 1980s. This is partly as a consequence of marketisation, partly because ethos has been identified as a low-cost route to school improvement. Corporate, authoritarian, and most recently ‘military’ models of ethos have been widely promulgated in the UK. Another significant strand of educational thinking, however, has emphasised ethos for and as learning: how sch…
Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media
This chapter looks critically at the ‘Girl Effect’, a new trend in global development policy and practice that involves a focus on and address to young women. The idea of the Girl Effect was coined by the corporate giant Nike in the mid-noughties, and had at its heart a bold claim: that girls hold the key to ending world poverty and transforming health and life expectancy in the developing world. It was proposed that a radical new approach was ne…
Education, ‘consumerism’ and ‘personalisation’
Extended review of John Hartley's book Education and the culture of consumption: personalisation and the social order 2012
Children and Young People’s Cultural Worlds
Children and young people in the early twenty-first century encounter, and creatively adapt to, a range of cultural phenomena in an increasingly mediated, commercialised and globalised world. Children and young people's cultural worlds offers a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age. Childhood innocence is a concept that often underpins the way adults think about children and new technologies. The book challenges adult concerns, hi…
School Ethos and the Spatial Turn: Capacious” Approaches to Research and Practice
This article argues that specific spatial imaginaries are embedded in current debates about school ethos and research methods. It takes the reader on a journey around an English multicultural primary school supported by the creative learning program Creative Partnerships, exploring how creative arts practices (re)configured sociospatial relations within the school community over a 3-year period. The article proposes the metaphor of "capaciousness…
Dockside Tarts and Modesty Boards: A Review of Recent Policy on Sexualisation
In recent years, the ‘sexualisation of childhood’ has moved into the centre ground of public policy and debate internationally, despite the conceptual confusions and inadequate evidence surrounding the processes denoted by the term. This paper focuses primarily on the most recent of several UK government‐commissioned reviews and reports, the B ailey R eview of 2011, warning that its proposals may amplify the voices of organised campaign groups at…
Global concerns, local negotiations and moral selves: Contemporary parenting and the “sexualisation of childhood” debate
Parents are contradictorily positioned within the “sexualisation of childhood” debate. They (“we”) are assumed to be concerned about sexualisation, and are urged to challenge it through campaigning, “saying no,” discussing “media messages” with children, and so on. Yet “irresponsible” consumption practices, particularly by mothers, are also held responsible for sexualisation. We argue that parental concern may be overstated: participants in our q…
What I heard about sexualisation: Or conversations with my inner Barbie
This thinkpiece arises from personal reflection on researching ‘sexualisation’, on the individuals and issues encountered and on elements that were unspoken or more rarely voiced. It suggests that the discourse on sexualisation tends to construct an ‘other’ from which speakers distance themselves, variously defined as ‘bad’ mothers, sexualized girls, ‘unhealthy’ sexuality, undesirable or wrong values, an exploitative industry, and so on. The grip…
Too much, too soon? Children, ‘sexualization’ and consumer culture
This article presents a critical analysis of how the issue of childhood ‘sexualization’ – and the role of consumer culture within it – has been defined and framed, both within the public debate and in the academic research literature. It counterposes this with some evidence taken from a study conducted in Scotland in 2009/10 about the availability and nature of ‘sexualized’ goods, and the perspectives of parents and children. The article suggests…
Engaging with the Bailey Review: Blogging, academia and authenticity
This article reproduces and discusses a series of blog posts posted by academics in anticipation of the report on commercialisation, sexualisation and childhood, ‘Letting Children Be Children’ by Reg Bailey for the UK Department of Education in June 2011. The article discusses the difficulty of ‘translating’ scholarly work for the public in a context where ‘impact’ is increasingly important and the challenges that academics face in finding new wa…
"Student Voice" and Governmentality: The production of enterprising subjects
“Student voice” is now taking a more central role in educational policy, guidance and thinking. As it does so, however, it becomes less clear how to interpret it: it can perhaps no longer be seen as a radical gesture that will necessarily challenge educational hierarchies. Drawing on qualitative research into one student participation project, “Students as Researchers”, the article explores how far Foucauldian concepts of governmentality may offe…
‘Having a real debate’: Using media as a resource in sex education
This article describes the genesis, development and evaluation of Media Relate, a project and teaching pack about media images of sex and relationships for use in school sex and relationship education and citizenship curricula, with young people aged 12–15. Media Relate was based on the findings of an earlier research project into young people's views on media portrayals of sex and relationships, key aspects of which are summarised here, includin…
Media Education: Authority, Identity and Value - An Editorial Dialogue
In this 'dialogue' article, the three editors of the special issue debate three key themes arising from the articles that follow. We discuss the dilemmas posed by the institutionalisation or 'authorisation' of media education within the formal education system; persistent questions about the role of media education as an intervention in the processes of students' identity formation; and the vexed debate about judgments of cultural value and their…
Like Shakespeare it's a Good Thing: Cultural Value in the Classroom
Questions of cultural value, aesthetics and evaluative judgments have vexed media education since its inception. Whilst they continue to count heavily both in teachers' conceptions of the work they do, and in students' responses to it, they have become increasingly problematic in contemporary society. The diverse environments of contemporary schools and the capacity of new media technologies to foster different taste communities have contributed …
Young People, Sex and the Media: The Facts of Life?
Are children today growing up too soon? How do they - and their parents - feel about media portrayals of sex and personal relationships? Are the media a corrupting influence, or a potentially positive
Embarrassment, Education and Erotics: The Sexual Politics of Family Viewing
This article discusses parents' and young people's accounts of family television viewing, produced as part of a research project into responses to sexual content in the media. The analysis identifies how practices of media consumption, such as parents 'discussing' social issues in drama with their children, are gendered and gendering. These in turn contribute to young people's understandings of gender and sexual identities. The article argues tha…
"Student Voice" and Governmentality: The production of enterprising subjects
“Student voice” is now taking a more central role in educational policy, guidance and thinking. As it does so, however, it becomes less clear how to interpret it: it can perhaps no longer be seen as a radical gesture that will necessarily challenge educational hierarchies. Drawing on qualitative research into one student participation project, “Students as Researchers”, the article explores how far Foucauldian concepts of governmentality may offe…
School Ethos and the Spatial Turn: Capacious” Approaches to Research and Practice
This article argues that specific spatial imaginaries are embedded in current debates about school ethos and research methods. It takes the reader on a journey around an English multicultural primary school supported by the creative learning program Creative Partnerships, exploring how creative arts practices (re)configured sociospatial relations within the school community over a 3-year period. The article proposes the metaphor of "capaciousness…
Global concerns, local negotiations and moral selves: Contemporary parenting and the “sexualisation of childhood” debate
Parents are contradictorily positioned within the “sexualisation of childhood” debate. They (“we”) are assumed to be concerned about sexualisation, and are urged to challenge it through campaigning, “saying no,” discussing “media messages” with children, and so on. Yet “irresponsible” consumption practices, particularly by mothers, are also held responsible for sexualisation. We argue that parental concern may be overstated: participants in our q…
Enacting whole‐school relationships and sexuality education in England: Context matters
Evidence from intervention evaluations suggests that achieving meaningful and lasting social, behavioural and attitudinal change from relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in schools requires more than just a curriculum. Whole‐school approaches appear particularly promising since they work at multiple levels. For instance, they may: engage with carers, communities and local services; address iniquitous cultures and norms; change school p…
Education, ‘consumerism’ and ‘personalisation’
Extended review of John Hartley's book Education and the culture of consumption: personalisation and the social order 2012
What I heard about sexualisation: Or conversations with my inner Barbie
This thinkpiece arises from personal reflection on researching ‘sexualisation’, on the individuals and issues encountered and on elements that were unspoken or more rarely voiced. It suggests that the discourse on sexualisation tends to construct an ‘other’ from which speakers distance themselves, variously defined as ‘bad’ mothers, sexualized girls, ‘unhealthy’ sexuality, undesirable or wrong values, an exploitative industry, and so on. The grip…
Considerate, convivial and capacious? Finding a language to capture ethos in 'creative' schools
Concepts of school ‘ethos’ or ‘culture’ have been widely debated in education since the 1980s. This is partly as a consequence of marketisation, partly because ethos has been identified as a low-cost route to school improvement. Corporate, authoritarian, and most recently ‘military’ models of ethos have been widely promulgated in the UK. Another significant strand of educational thinking, however, has emphasised ethos for and as learning: how sch…
Embarrassment, Education and Erotics: The Sexual Politics of Family Viewing
This article discusses parents' and young people's accounts of family television viewing, produced as part of a research project into responses to sexual content in the media. The analysis identifies how practices of media consumption, such as parents 'discussing' social issues in drama with their children, are gendered and gendering. These in turn contribute to young people's understandings of gender and sexual identities. The article argues tha…
Wrestling in Woolly Gloves: Not Just Being Critically Media Literate
The author argues that media literacy typically overestimates the importance of theory or critique and underestimates what media production may contribute to learning. Through detailed study of a student's “violent” video, the author considers the informal knowledge evidenced in practical work and suggests how to mobilize such “ways of knowing” pedagogically
Feminist subjects, multi-media: Cultural methodologies
Attune, animate and amplify: Creating youth voice assemblages in pARTicipatory sexuality education research
This paper explores the politics and praxis of ‘youth voice assemblages’ in an exploratory and pARTicipatory research project where 125 young people (aged 11–18) from England, Scotland and Wales shared what and how they are learning about relationships, sex and sexuality. Creative methods enabled us to ‘attune’ to this learning and generate ‘darta’ (arts‐based data). We then ‘animated’ these darta as dartaphacts (creative objects) including films…
Media Education: Authority, Identity and Value - An Editorial Dialogue
In this 'dialogue' article, the three editors of the special issue debate three key themes arising from the articles that follow. We discuss the dilemmas posed by the institutionalisation or 'authorisation' of media education within the formal education system; persistent questions about the role of media education as an intervention in the processes of students' identity formation; and the vexed debate about judgments of cultural value and their…
Feminist subjects, multi-media: Cultural methodologies
Wrestling in Woolly Gloves: Not Just Being Critically Media Literate
The author argues that media literacy typically overestimates the importance of theory or critique and underestimates what media production may contribute to learning. Through detailed study of a student's “violent” video, the author considers the informal knowledge evidenced in practical work and suggests how to mobilize such “ways of knowing” pedagogically
Young People, Sex and the Media: The Facts of Life?
Are children today growing up too soon? How do they - and their parents - feel about media portrayals of sex and personal relationships? Are the media a corrupting influence, or a potentially positive
Embarrassment, Education and Erotics: The Sexual Politics of Family Viewing
This article discusses parents' and young people's accounts of family television viewing, produced as part of a research project into responses to sexual content in the media. The analysis identifies how practices of media consumption, such as parents 'discussing' social issues in drama with their children, are gendered and gendering. These in turn contribute to young people's understandings of gender and sexual identities. The article argues tha…
‘Having a real debate’: Using media as a resource in sex education
This article describes the genesis, development and evaluation of Media Relate, a project and teaching pack about media images of sex and relationships for use in school sex and relationship education and citizenship curricula, with young people aged 12–15. Media Relate was based on the findings of an earlier research project into young people's views on media portrayals of sex and relationships, key aspects of which are summarised here, includin…
Media Education: Authority, Identity and Value - An Editorial Dialogue
In this 'dialogue' article, the three editors of the special issue debate three key themes arising from the articles that follow. We discuss the dilemmas posed by the institutionalisation or 'authorisation' of media education within the formal education system; persistent questions about the role of media education as an intervention in the processes of students' identity formation; and the vexed debate about judgments of cultural value and their…
Like Shakespeare it's a Good Thing: Cultural Value in the Classroom
Questions of cultural value, aesthetics and evaluative judgments have vexed media education since its inception. Whilst they continue to count heavily both in teachers' conceptions of the work they do, and in students' responses to it, they have become increasingly problematic in contemporary society. The diverse environments of contemporary schools and the capacity of new media technologies to foster different taste communities have contributed …
"Student Voice" and Governmentality: The production of enterprising subjects
“Student voice” is now taking a more central role in educational policy, guidance and thinking. As it does so, however, it becomes less clear how to interpret it: it can perhaps no longer be seen as a radical gesture that will necessarily challenge educational hierarchies. Drawing on qualitative research into one student participation project, “Students as Researchers”, the article explores how far Foucauldian concepts of governmentality may offe…
Too much, too soon? Children, ‘sexualization’ and consumer culture
This article presents a critical analysis of how the issue of childhood ‘sexualization’ – and the role of consumer culture within it – has been defined and framed, both within the public debate and in the academic research literature. It counterposes this with some evidence taken from a study conducted in Scotland in 2009/10 about the availability and nature of ‘sexualized’ goods, and the perspectives of parents and children. The article suggests…
Engaging with the Bailey Review: Blogging, academia and authenticity
This article reproduces and discusses a series of blog posts posted by academics in anticipation of the report on commercialisation, sexualisation and childhood, ‘Letting Children Be Children’ by Reg Bailey for the UK Department of Education in June 2011. The article discusses the difficulty of ‘translating’ scholarly work for the public in a context where ‘impact’ is increasingly important and the challenges that academics face in finding new wa…
Dockside Tarts and Modesty Boards: A Review of Recent Policy on Sexualisation
In recent years, the ‘sexualisation of childhood’ has moved into the centre ground of public policy and debate internationally, despite the conceptual confusions and inadequate evidence surrounding the processes denoted by the term. This paper focuses primarily on the most recent of several UK government‐commissioned reviews and reports, the B ailey R eview of 2011, warning that its proposals may amplify the voices of organised campaign groups at…
Global concerns, local negotiations and moral selves: Contemporary parenting and the “sexualisation of childhood” debate
Parents are contradictorily positioned within the “sexualisation of childhood” debate. They (“we”) are assumed to be concerned about sexualisation, and are urged to challenge it through campaigning, “saying no,” discussing “media messages” with children, and so on. Yet “irresponsible” consumption practices, particularly by mothers, are also held responsible for sexualisation. We argue that parental concern may be overstated: participants in our q…
What I heard about sexualisation: Or conversations with my inner Barbie
This thinkpiece arises from personal reflection on researching ‘sexualisation’, on the individuals and issues encountered and on elements that were unspoken or more rarely voiced. It suggests that the discourse on sexualisation tends to construct an ‘other’ from which speakers distance themselves, variously defined as ‘bad’ mothers, sexualized girls, ‘unhealthy’ sexuality, undesirable or wrong values, an exploitative industry, and so on. The grip…
Children and Young People’s Cultural Worlds
Children and young people in the early twenty-first century encounter, and creatively adapt to, a range of cultural phenomena in an increasingly mediated, commercialised and globalised world. Children and young people's cultural worlds offers a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age. Childhood innocence is a concept that often underpins the way adults think about children and new technologies. The book challenges adult concerns, hi…
School Ethos and the Spatial Turn: Capacious” Approaches to Research and Practice
This article argues that specific spatial imaginaries are embedded in current debates about school ethos and research methods. It takes the reader on a journey around an English multicultural primary school supported by the creative learning program Creative Partnerships, exploring how creative arts practices (re)configured sociospatial relations within the school community over a 3-year period. The article proposes the metaphor of "capaciousness…
Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media
This chapter looks critically at the ‘Girl Effect’, a new trend in global development policy and practice that involves a focus on and address to young women. The idea of the Girl Effect was coined by the corporate giant Nike in the mid-noughties, and had at its heart a bold claim: that girls hold the key to ending world poverty and transforming health and life expectancy in the developing world. It was proposed that a radical new approach was ne…
Education, ‘consumerism’ and ‘personalisation’
Extended review of John Hartley's book Education and the culture of consumption: personalisation and the social order 2012
Gender, sex and children's play
Children's play, gender, and sexuality continues to be a fraught subject, frequently debated in the popular media, in academic texts, and indeed by parents, carers and professionals. Jacky Kilvingt
Considerate, convivial and capacious? Finding a language to capture ethos in 'creative' schools
Concepts of school ‘ethos’ or ‘culture’ have been widely debated in education since the 1980s. This is partly as a consequence of marketisation, partly because ethos has been identified as a low-cost route to school improvement. Corporate, authoritarian, and most recently ‘military’ models of ethos have been widely promulgated in the UK. Another significant strand of educational thinking, however, has emphasised ethos for and as learning: how sch…
‘More than boy, girl, male, female’: Exploring young people’s views on gender diversity within and beyond school contexts
This paper explores the views of young people aged 12–14 on gender diversity, drawing upon school-based qualitative data from a study conducted in England in 2015–2016. Although earlier feminist and queer research in schools often found evidence of variable local gender cultures and gender non-conformity, we argue that the contemporary context, with its increasing global awareness of gender diversity, offers young people significant new ways of l…
The Future of Childhood Studies and Children & Society
As editors of Children & Society, we are delighted to introduce a themed section comprised of three papers by leading figures in Childhood Studies — Alan Prout, Spyros Spyrou and Nigel Patrick Thomas. Their papers have been developed from keynote presentations at the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth’s 6th International Conference titled, ‘The Social, the Biological and the Material Child’, which took place at the University of Sheffiel…
Dilemmas of school-based relationships and sexuality education for and about consent
In 2018, reflecting in this journal on the arrival of the ‘age of consent’ into sexuality education, Jen Gilbert questioned what would happen to a concept drawn in part from legal contexts, but partly also driven by the passion of feminist activists, when it met the demands and logics – the learning outcomes and lesson plans – of the classroom. This article offers one response, drawing on qualitative data from two whole-school sexual health progr…
Enacting whole‐school relationships and sexuality education in England: Context matters
Evidence from intervention evaluations suggests that achieving meaningful and lasting social, behavioural and attitudinal change from relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) in schools requires more than just a curriculum. Whole‐school approaches appear particularly promising since they work at multiple levels. For instance, they may: engage with carers, communities and local services; address iniquitous cultures and norms; change school p…
Research ethics in social science research during health pandemics: What can we learn from Covid-19 experiences
The COVID-19 pandemic posed many ethical and practical challenges for academic research. Some of these have been documented, particularly in relation to health research, but less attention has been paid to the dilemmas encountered by educational and social science research. Given that pandemics are predicted to be more frequent, it is vital to understand how to continue crucial research in schools and other learning communities. This article ther…
Man-i-pulation? Becoming creative with the ‘information folds’ of post-digital youth masculinity assemblages
This article explores how masculinity assemblages are composed within postdigital youth landscapes where gender is in a state of epistemic crisis and the digital is assumed to operate primarily as a coercive force. Building on queer and feminist posthuman praxis, we conceptualize the postdigital through Laura Marks’ information fold alongside Celia Lury’s notion of platformization and problem space where we share a compositional methodology that …
Sociology (24 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (11 works) · Social science (9 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (7 works) · Human sexuality (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Media studies (7 works)