About the Centre for Children and Youth
At the Centre for Children and Youth, our mission is to advance research activity and create connections inside and outside the University.
NUCoRE Centre for Children and Youth
The NUCoRE Centre for Children and Youth at Newcastle University is a hub of interdisciplinary research exploring various aspects of young people's lives. The centre brings together researchers from multiple fields to collaborate on impactful research.These fields include human-computer interaction, geography, politics, sociology, history and education.
Addressing inequalities
Children and young people experience huge differences in circumstances, health outcomes and attainment. This starts early and can impact them across the life course.
In the North East of England, this is particularly stark. Our region has some of the highest proportions of children living in poverty; with low literacy levels; of childhood obesity; and of looked-after children. The COVID-19 pandemic has also had a particularly negative impact on children’s learning, wellbeing and mental health in our region.
Through our world-class research and education, we aim to reduce the impact of social and health inequalities on children, support opportunities for growth, and improve childhoods for all.
From Newcastle. For children and youth.
There is a growing recognition of children and young people’s agency to represent themselves and engage with research that interests them and aims to improve their lives.
Our Centre builds on our current research in the arts and humanities, social sciences, health sciences, and design and engineering. We are creating a dynamic and inclusive research community at Newcastle University to address the most important research questions for children, young people and their families.
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How we work
We work to:
- Bring together Newcastle University’s interdisciplinary research endeavours with and for children and young people;
- Strengthen our links with partners, practitioners and policymakers;
- Establish international collaborations in the research area of children and youth;
- Create an innovative learning environment for postgraduate students and early career researchers;
- Expand Newcastle University’s undergraduate teaching on children and youth;
- Find resources and opportunities to address the challenges identified through the Centre.
What do our researchers say?
Lucy Pearson
“I’m part of the Children’s Literature Unit in the School of English: the CLU works across a wide range of periods and topics related to children’s and young adult literature. My CLU colleagues are Matthew Grenby, Karen Sands-O’Connor, and Emily Murphy.
“I work closely with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. This partnership is currently (until 2023) supported by Arts Council England as the Vital North Partnership.
“My research focuses on the cultural history of children’s books in Britain, how books for children have been made and understood, and how children’s literature fits into broader ideas about literature and childhood. My current work focuses on the Carnegie Medal, the UK’s oldest literary award for children’s books. Considering the Carnegie Medal as a heritage institution and as a key actor in the children’s book world, it examines how the medal has functioned as a focus for negotiating ideas of the ‘quality’ children’s book and asks how the medal has shaped understandings of children’s literature in Britain.
“I also have a strong interest in impact work through my partnership with Seven Stories: this has focused on children’s interactions with archives and museums and how this may connect to wellbeing. I am currently working on a project supporting community storytime for the under-fives.”
For more information, contact:
Abigail Durrant
“I’m the Co-Director of Open Lab, an interdisciplinary design research group in the School of Computing. Open Lab takes human-centred and social perspectives to the study of digital technologies. Many projects involve children and young people and education. Our research programmes in educational technology and studies of civic engagement have explored children’s participation in local community initiatives through digital communications.
“I have conducted design research with children and young people for over 20 years. During this time, we’ve critically explored how digital technologies have shaped their social lives. We‘ve also identified opportunities to enrich digital interactions through design, promoting creativity and social wellbeing.
“A key recently completed project is EPSRC ‘Playing out with IoT’ (2017–2020). Working in collaboration with children 3–18 years old, this research investigated barriers to outdoor play shaped by online and mobile tools. It explored design opportunities using the Internet of Things (IoT) for new creative free play outdoors.
“Previous research on the EPSRC INTUIT project (2018–2022) explores young people living with HIV, their communication challenges with healthcare professionals and how these could be addressed through a new diary design."
For more information, see:
Cristina McKean
“I lead epidemiological research with global reach, which develops and evaluates public health practices for children with and at risk of developmental language disorders.
“Approximately 8% of children don’t develop language at the expected rate and experience lifelong difficulties. This can have profound consequences for their education, health and wellbeing. Importantly, language difficulties follow the social gradient, and the design of health and education services can often exacerbate social inequalities.
“My work aims to develop equitable public health practices to promote robust language development for all children. This agenda is underpinned by principles of social justice, interdisciplinary collaboration, and co-design. My current research focuses on identifying at-risk children, interventions, and service delivery design.”
Four cross-cutting themes inform it:
- developmental change
- the child’s social context
- cross-cultural diversity
- the power of co-design
For more information, see:
Janice McLaughlin
“Since 2001, I’ve been researching the lives of families with disabled children in the North East.
Key themes in this work are:
- the paucity of support provided by local and national state agencies
- how this lack of support heightens the isolation and marginalisation of families
- the damage stigma has on the lives of disabled young people and their families
- the value of using varied and collaborative approaches to research design when working with families and disabled children and young people in research
- the necessity of building long-term partnerships with organisations that are run by or work with disabled children and their families to ensure findings influence policy and practice
- challenging the conditional citizenship of disabled people and their families by advocating for better conceptual frameworks to recognise their capacities to be citizens with the right to participate in society and policies and practices that are supposed to benefit them.”
For more information, see:
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/janicemclaughlin.html
Centre for Learning and Teaching
The Centre for Learning and Teaching focuses on teaching innovation and exploring how the learning environment impacts learning practices and outcomes.
It provides alternative curriculums and environments for inclusive practices and learner-centred approaches. Its work covers project-based learning, inquiry learning, community curriculum-making and research on the impact of technology in education.
Social justice is a key motivator. The centre aims to disrupt education inequities by developing frameworks to explore and explain inequities and models of practice that are co-produced and transformative.
Its research programme explores how schools and organisations can work together to transform communities and address disadvantages.
For more information, see:
Child Speech and Language Research Group
The Child Speech and Language Research Group is a team of researchers and students studying child language development and disorders.
The group aims to impact policy, develop interventions and services and understand the mechanisms and processes of language development across different contexts and languages.
Its research areas include:
- typical and atypical language development
- assessment and intervention
- collaborative practice
- public health approaches to language development
For more information, see:
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/research/research-themes/childrens-speech/
Children's Literature Unit Graduate Group
The Newcastle’s Children’s Literature Unit is a leading centre in the UK for studying children’s literature. The unit strongly focuses on book history and publishing. Its partnership with Seven Stories supports its research on contemporary children’s literature.
The unit has a lively research community centred around the Children’s Literature Unit Graduate Group (CLUGG). Its work includes an annual programme of lectures and seminars on aspects of children’s literature and culture and a regular series of work-in-progress seminars.
For more information, see:
Life Cycles, Bodies, Health and Disease
The Life Cycles, Bodies, Health, and Disease group examines lifecycle, gender, migration, reproduction, disease, death and personhood in the past from interdisciplinary perspectives.
Its work has a particular focus on:
- the history of medicine
- environmental history
- the history of childhood
- histories of death and body disposal
The group nurtures research ideas and careers at all stages and has members ranging from postgraduate students to professors. The group holds regular meetings, workshops and conferences connected to its interests.
For more information, see:
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology Child and Youth Research Group
The Child and Youth Research Group is part of Newcastle University's School of Geography, Politics and Sociology. The group comprises geographers, sociologists, social anthropologists and political scientists who study the lives and social conditions of children and young people across various local and global situations.
Its research areas include youth cultures and subcultures, social inequalities, (geo)politics and participation and methodological partnerships with children. The group has published several papers and reports on these topics.
For more information, see:
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/research/research-groups/youth-research-group/