Dr Laura Fenton
Population Health, School of Medicine and Population Health
Research Associate
+44 114 222 2980
Full contact details
Population Health, School of Medicine and Population Health
Regent Court (ScHARR)
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA
- Profile
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I joined the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group in 2021. I’m currently working as the lead qualitative research associate on Youth Drinking in Decline (Y-DiD), a Wellcome Trust funded mixed methods project which examines changes in youth drinking cultures over recent decades.
Before joining ScHARR I worked at the University of Manchester on the ESRC funded Girlhood and Later Life project (PI: Professor Penny Tinkler), which explored the youth transitions of women born in the United Kingdom between 1939-52, and the implications of youth experiences for later life. Both this and my current role build on research experience I gained through my PhD, which I completed in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester in 2018. My Phd thesis examines the changing place of alcohol in the day-to-day lives of three generations of British women.
- Qualifications
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- PhD in Sociology, University of Manchester
- Masters of Sociology, York University (Canada)
- Honours Bachelor of Arts, University of Toronto (Canada)
- Research interests
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In broad terms, my research interests include alcohol, youth, gender, the life course. social change, and creative biographical methods. I am particularly interested in using biographical and related qualitative methods to better understand people’s changing relationships to alcohol across both biographical and historical time.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- A latent class analysis of international change and continuity in adolescent health and wellbeing: a repeat cross-sectional study. PLoS ONE, 19(6). View this article in WRRO
- A latent class analysis of change and continuity in adolescent health and wellbeing in England during the decline in youth alcohol consumption: a repeat cross-sectional study. Preventive Medicine Reports, 36. View this article in WRRO
- Me Too? Re-encountering youth experiences of sexual violence in post-war England from the vantage point of later life. Contemporary British History, 37(3), 339-366.
- “There’s a lot of stereotypes going on”: A cross-national qualitative analysis of the place of gender in declining youth drinking. International Journal of Drug Policy, 108.
- ‘More options…less time’ in the ‘hustle culture’ of ‘generation sensible’: Individualization and drinking decline among twenty‐first century young adults. The British Journal of Sociology, 73(4), 903-918.
- Are changes in attitudes towards school associated with declining youth drinking? A multi-level analysis of 37 countries. European Journal of Public Health, 32(3), 354-359.
- Recomposing persons: Scavenging and storytelling in a birth cohort archive. History of the Human Sciences, 34(3-4), 266-289.
- Book Review Symposium: Jennifer Mason, Affinities: Potent Connections in Personal Life. Sociology, 53(5), 977-978.
- Living with other women’s lives: ‘research resonance’ in the context of life history interviewing. Women's History Review, 1-16.
- The (im)mobilities of COVID-19 in later life: burning and building generational bridges. Ageing and Society, 1-23.
- Geographies of alcohol and generation: examining the decline in youth drinking in England through a spatial lens. Drug and Alcohol Review.
- ‘When I came to university, that’s when the real shift came’: alcohol and belonging in English higher education. Journal of Youth Studies.
- ‘90 per cent of the time when I have had a drink in my hand I’m on my phone as well’: a cross-national analysis of communications technologies and drinking practices among young people. New Media & Society.
- Introducing ‘resonance’: Revisioning the relationship between youth and later life in women born 1939–52. The Sociological Review, 003802612211402-003802612211402.
- Editorial: Love Island: Gender, Sexuality and Intimate Relationships. Frontiers in Sociology, 6.
Chapters
- Altered states, Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication (pp. 501-522). Routledge
- Bright Lights, No City: Investigating Young People’s Suburban and Rural Drinkscapes, Youth Beyond the City (pp. 116-134). Bristol University Press
- Risk, Control and Hyper-Moderate Drinking Amongst Generation Z, Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course (pp. 151-176). Springer International Publishing
- Introduction: Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course, Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course (pp. 1-25). Springer International Publishing
- ALTERED STATES: Changing conditions of excess in European drinking cultures1, Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication (pp. 501-522).
- The kinship of bioinformation1, Bioinformation Worlds and Futures (pp. 54-74). Routledge
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am a member of the British Sociological Association, and a former co-convenor of its Alcohol study Group. I am also a member and former social media officer of the Drinking Studies Network.