Books by Chrissie Rogers
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Care Ethics, 2025
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Who is Trudy? What is Mother? Lalvani (2019: 2) describes, ‘Mother is often understood... more PRE-PRINT
Who is Trudy? What is Mother? Lalvani (2019: 2) describes, ‘Mother is often understood in dominant discourse as a person without further identity, or as existing without context; however, motherhood is a relational identity’ [emphasis in original]. In 2016, England, UK, I met Trudy, a 63-year-old mother, when she responded to my call for research participants about disability and criminal justice. We met again in 2017 for a follow-up, and then remotely via telephone and email in 2020, 2023 and 2024. She had a lot to say, as her autistic son Mathais had been so violent towards her, she was hospitalised on more than one occasion. The final time she was attacked, Mathais was arrested, charged, and incarcerated. I discovered on listening to her story she will always be Mother and will always be caring. Via Trudy’s story, we find care-full-ness, resolve and survival are obvious. Indeed, caring and care-full-ness ought to be privileged and positioned as not simply about the practical day-to-day aspects of caring (although these are important) but about how practical caring and emotional caring co-exist within the socio-political sphere and through our sociological imagination and care full storytelling. It is hard to hear how someone experiencing physical and emotional pain can continue to care for and about, and so deeply. Yet beyond Trudy’s personal troubles, this story tells us about the bigger picture. A dominant story of care is one that we want to hear, one that we are comfortable with, however, it often works to exclude. As Plummer (2019) suggests about narrative exclusion; symbolic violence is committed as we displace, stigmatise and scapegoat certain groups. Human beings, in this case, Trudy and Mathais, are only autonomous and interdependent, if they are safe and in beneficial relations of care. Fundamentally, as Noddings said thirty years ago, ‘[i]f caring is to be maintained, clearly, the one - caring must be maintained’ (Noddings, 1995: 26). This is certainly the case for Trudy, as ethical caring is nuanced, and care full practices ought to involve everyone via relational and interdependent responsibility.
Consent: Gender, Power and Subjectivity, 2023
In the 21st Century new criminal justice policies have emerged that are aimed directly at individ... more In the 21st Century new criminal justice policies have emerged that are aimed directly at individuals who have been convicted of a sex offence. These polices are based on the notion that individuals are characterised by some fixed and stable predisposition to commit sex crimes. Furthermore, the legal system commonly works on the assumption, who did what to whom and criminal justice processes struggle with anything that is not about autonomous individuals. Public calls for tougher sentencing, new penology that focusses on incapacitation rather than rehabilitation, and moral panic, means criminal conviction can carry disadvantages long after release. This chapter draws on interview data with men who are disabled and have learning difficulties, mental health challenges and/or are autistic, mothers who have criminalised disabled sons, and education/criminal justice professionals. For my participants negotiating rules and regulations as well as understanding consequences of their actions is complex. The narratives in my study indicate that whilst unacceptable, underage sexual assault, violence, grooming, rape, and sexting, is carried out by someone who has misunderstood social and sexual cues. Significantly their experience of the criminal justice system has been felt as frightening and harm inducing, yet on release, with support, no further sex crimes occurred. By exploring what happened as a precursor to these events and how then becoming embroiled in the criminal justice system is experienced, we can begin to understand sex offending trajectories in the context of consent, as well as prevent the incarceration of disabled people.
Disability, Care and Family Law, 2021
Research with prisoner's families, especially those who have a 'disabled' son or daughter as a re... more Research with prisoner's families, especially those who have a 'disabled' son or daughter as a result of learning difficulties or disabilities, an autistic spectrum condition or mental health problems, has in the past been side-lined. As evidenced in this chapter, mothering a 'child' who is incarcerated is undeniably challenging. It could be that the events leading up to imprisonment occurred because of an unexpected violent act, a 'one off' serious crime, or a lifetime (to that point) of aggression, drug use or antisocial behaviour. Whatever the reasons for a custodial sentence, caring for and about a son or daughter, before offending and then during imprisonment is painfulemotionally and practically. Life stories reveal mothers experience emotional and physical harm and systemic abuse, as well as display unconditional love and care work. Mothers of offenders have experienced a life that is unimaginably demanding and conveys accounts of failure. Not their failure, but that of the systems (and sometimes people) around them. Through the lens of a care ethics model of disability, I identify careless and carefull spaces to explore how participants recall physical and emotional violent abuse, resulting in the collapse of their mental well-being as well as their resilience to these events.
The Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of Auto/Biography, 2020
This chapter takes a sociological and auto/biographical approach to describe and explain the very... more This chapter takes a sociological and auto/biographical approach to describe and explain the very beginnings of a challenging research process. Yet substantively this chapter discusses and reflects upon missing data and at its core, silencing the silenced. Here missing data equates to the socio-political death of marginalised and oppressed people. That is, marginalised and oppressed people, (e.g. prisoners and their families, intellectually and physically disabled people, autists, people with mental health conditions), are silenced due to researchers having limited access to them, a disabling condition, participant scepticism about ‘powerful’ others, personal biographical trauma, and institutional practices, such as, governing and punitive research excellence frameworks, restrictive ethical procedures and a disdain for creative methods. Essentially people go missing, ‘communities’ and groups die a slow socio-political death and institutions such as legal structures and procedures, schools and universities stay alive, albeit like machines all producing ‘cheerful’ robots. I propose however, via a sociological imagination, we enable ‘speaking’ auto/biographically, draw out creativity and utilise literature, the Arts and comedy, then perhaps we might rouse resistance and socio-political living for oppressed and marginalised people, and sociologists and criminologists committed to social justice.
Introductory chapter to book
This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled peoples lives sets out a care ethics... more This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled peoples lives sets out a care ethics model of disability that outlines the emotional caring sphere, where love and care are psycho-socially questioned, the practical caring sphere, where day-to-day care is carried out and the socio-political caring sphere, where social intolerance and aversion to difficult differences are played out. It does so by discussing issue based everyday life, such as family, relationships, media representations and education in an evocative and creative manner. This book draws from an understanding of how intellectual disability is represented in all forms of media, a feminist ethics of care, and capabilities, as well as other theories, to provide a critique and alternative to the social model of disability as well as illuminate care-less spaces that inhabit all the caring spheres. The first two chapters of the book provides an overview of intellectual disability, the debates and outlining of the model. Having begun to develop an innovative theoretical framework for understanding intellectual disability and being human, the book moves onto empirical and narrative driven issue based chapters. The following chapters builds on the emergent framework and discusses the application of particular theories in three different substantive areas: education, mothering and sexual politics. A concluding remarks draws together the common themes across the applied chapters and links them to the overarching theoretical framework.
An important read for all those studying and researching intellectual or learning disability, this book will be an essential resource in sociology, philosophy, criminology (law), social work, education and nursing in particular.
What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in differen... more What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes?
Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course.
Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.
In his work The Exclusive Society, Young (1999) maps a move from inclusion to exclusion during mo... more In his work The Exclusive Society, Young (1999) maps a move from inclusion to exclusion during modernity through to late modernity. However, he suggests the mode of exclusion is one that shifts and is also dependent on ones ‘credit rating’ from the wealthy, to the ‘dangerousness of the incarcerated’. I suggest that there too is a ‘credit rating’ for people who have learning impairments, only their ‘credit’ is calculated within a mental ability, aesthetic beauty and ‘appropriate’ social interaction frame. This ‘credit rating’ affects parents of an impaired child, the child and the extended family, and is therefore calculated on a continuum of ‘normal’ family practices. It is this continuum of ‘normality’ that renders the family ‘disabled’, difficult and excluded, with a very low ‘credit rating’ in terms of ‘worth’ regarding inclusion into mainstream society.
The key themes that run through this study are that of disappointment, denial, and social exclusion/inclusion, without exception all three are experienced at different levels privately, personally and publicly. It is the emotional and practical difficulties experienced that affect the mental health, social relationships, career prospects, and general everyday living conditions for parents of children with impairments. However, an equally important issue is also apparent in the analysis of policy documents and cultural discourses. Denial of difficulty is found rhetorically in policies on ‘inclusive education’ and how the ‘public other’ responds to difficulty is in their aversion to ‘difficult difference’ and the ‘difficult other’. Policies on education provision and implementation directly affect children identified with special educational needs (SEN). These children have a right to be educated in a way that is best suited to them as individuals. The contradictions that occur between the theories and policies imply the experience at a local level dramatically affects the emotional and practical lives of the families involved. This is based on the heterogeneity of provision at the local level and wider society reactions to difference and disability. The privileging of the academic and the ‘normal’ can exclude the child with SEN and their families from engaging in a so-called ‘inclusive’ society.
This study demonstrates that parents are disappointed, excluded, compromised and frustrated both emotionally and in response to expectations of support. However in the face of this I reveal, that even though parents have been depressed, taken anti-depressants, turned to alcohol, felt suicidal, suffered in their relationships or wanted to desert their children, many have fought the health and education system, shown resilience, set up self help groups, complained and most importantly demonstrated that their children are worth fighting for.
Papers by Chrissie Rogers
Deviant Behavior , 2024
The collective belief that a sex offender is dangerous, is powerful in considering sexual norms a... more The collective belief that a sex offender is dangerous, is powerful in considering sexual norms and incarceration. In this article, I tell stories of sex crimes via life-story interviews with neurodivergent men who have additional learning difficulties, who were criminalised for sexual assault or rape, and mothers. This research cannot eradicate the harm for those who are historically institutionalised, nor can it help victims of sexual assault. However, there is a need to challenge troubling micro and macro-bureaucratic processes across institutions and systems such as education, health, and criminal justice, to support disabled people and their families care-fully and ethically.
This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled people's lives, sets out a care ... more This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled people's lives, sets out a care ethics model of disability that outlines the emotional caring sphere, where love and care are psycho-socially questioned, the practical caring sphere, where day-to-day care is carried out, and the socio-political caring sphere, where social intolerance and aversion to difficult differences are addressed. This book draws from an understanding of how intellectual disability is represented in all forms of media, a feminist ethics of care, and capabilities, as well as other theories, to provide a critique and alternative to the social model of disability.
Methodological innovations, May 1, 2020
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
Disability & Society, 2010
This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship ... more This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation-not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research and social theory are woven throughout this paper with the intention of opening up debate about sex, intimacy and normalisation, and how these impact upon young learning disabled people. I suggest that the relationship between sex, reproduction, intimacy and intellectual impairment and a project to decipher what it means to be human in all its dirty glory are also part of the discourse that needs to be discussed experientially and theoretically. So much so that the messy world within which we all live can be variously and differently constructed.
Disability & Society, Oct 21, 2015
On 5 October 2015 the inquest into Connor Sparrowhawk's death began. A young autistic man, aged 1... more On 5 October 2015 the inquest into Connor Sparrowhawk's death began. A young autistic man, aged 18, died in the bath on 4 July 2013. He had a seizure. The rolling tweets from @LBInquest are harrowing to say the least. Unimaginable torture for Sara and Richard (his mother and stepfather), as well as his siblings and others caring. Comments from the inquest such as 'I felt that Connor should be checked on every 5 or 10 minutes when he was in the bath because of his epilepsy' and 'ensuring someone was outside the door when he was bathing was basic nursing care' sound all the alarm bells for lack of care, because allegedly this did not happen. Clearly there was no one person looking out for him when he needed it the most. On 16 October 2015 the inquest jury found Connor's death was contributed by neglect. This article will explore the absence of care in a careless system.
Parenting and Inclusive Education, 2007
Parents in Britain, and indeed much of the Western world, can assume their child will be educated... more Parents in Britain, and indeed much of the Western world, can assume their child will be educated, and that the education provided will probably be carried out within a school. It is part of the socialisation process. For parents in this study, education provision is not a straightforward process whereby the child goes to school, engages with a curriculum and learns how to develop intellectually and conform to and manage social norms. Parents in this study have children who do not merge easily into this social world.
Deviant behavior, Apr 7, 2024
In the context of offenders who have learning difficulties, autism and/or social, emotional and m... more In the context of offenders who have learning difficulties, autism and/or social, emotional and mental health problems, their families, and professionals who work with them, I explore caring and ethical research processes via fieldnotes I wrote while carrying out lifestory interviews. Life-story interviews and recording fieldnotes within qualitative criminological, education and sociological research have long since been used to document and analyse communities, institutions and everyday life in the private and public spheres. They richly tell us about specific contexts, research relationships and emotional responses to data collection that interview transcripts alone overlook. It is in the process of recording and reflecting upon research relationships that we can see and understand 'care-full' research. But caring and ethical research works in an interdependent and relational way. Therefore, the participant and the researcher are at times vulnerable, and recognition of such is critical in considering meaningful and healthy research practices. However, the acknowledgment that particular types of data collection can be messy, chaotic and emotional is necessary in understanding caring research.
British Journal of Sociology of Education, May 1, 2012
It is clear that there are national and international government directives as well as legal obli... more It is clear that there are national and international government directives as well as legal obligations to educate and care for all children and young people. For example, in the UK 'Every Child Matters' promotes a meaningful sense of well-being for all children, 'Education for All' is positioned as a global inclusive education strategy and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in the USA has influenced the levels of opportunities for disabled students. These are just a few of the policy contexts that address education as a means to promote inclusion and meaningful learning. But do theyreally? A vast number of pupils are not included, have poor educational experiences and are either marginalised or demonised. Slee (The Irregular School), Rose (Confronting Obstacles to Inclusion) and Smyth, Down, and McInerney ('Hanging in with the Kids' in Tough Times) all add different ways of thinking about disadvantage and inclusive education to the mix and
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Books by Chrissie Rogers
Who is Trudy? What is Mother? Lalvani (2019: 2) describes, ‘Mother is often understood in dominant discourse as a person without further identity, or as existing without context; however, motherhood is a relational identity’ [emphasis in original]. In 2016, England, UK, I met Trudy, a 63-year-old mother, when she responded to my call for research participants about disability and criminal justice. We met again in 2017 for a follow-up, and then remotely via telephone and email in 2020, 2023 and 2024. She had a lot to say, as her autistic son Mathais had been so violent towards her, she was hospitalised on more than one occasion. The final time she was attacked, Mathais was arrested, charged, and incarcerated. I discovered on listening to her story she will always be Mother and will always be caring. Via Trudy’s story, we find care-full-ness, resolve and survival are obvious. Indeed, caring and care-full-ness ought to be privileged and positioned as not simply about the practical day-to-day aspects of caring (although these are important) but about how practical caring and emotional caring co-exist within the socio-political sphere and through our sociological imagination and care full storytelling. It is hard to hear how someone experiencing physical and emotional pain can continue to care for and about, and so deeply. Yet beyond Trudy’s personal troubles, this story tells us about the bigger picture. A dominant story of care is one that we want to hear, one that we are comfortable with, however, it often works to exclude. As Plummer (2019) suggests about narrative exclusion; symbolic violence is committed as we displace, stigmatise and scapegoat certain groups. Human beings, in this case, Trudy and Mathais, are only autonomous and interdependent, if they are safe and in beneficial relations of care. Fundamentally, as Noddings said thirty years ago, ‘[i]f caring is to be maintained, clearly, the one - caring must be maintained’ (Noddings, 1995: 26). This is certainly the case for Trudy, as ethical caring is nuanced, and care full practices ought to involve everyone via relational and interdependent responsibility.
An important read for all those studying and researching intellectual or learning disability, this book will be an essential resource in sociology, philosophy, criminology (law), social work, education and nursing in particular.
Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course.
Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.
The key themes that run through this study are that of disappointment, denial, and social exclusion/inclusion, without exception all three are experienced at different levels privately, personally and publicly. It is the emotional and practical difficulties experienced that affect the mental health, social relationships, career prospects, and general everyday living conditions for parents of children with impairments. However, an equally important issue is also apparent in the analysis of policy documents and cultural discourses. Denial of difficulty is found rhetorically in policies on ‘inclusive education’ and how the ‘public other’ responds to difficulty is in their aversion to ‘difficult difference’ and the ‘difficult other’. Policies on education provision and implementation directly affect children identified with special educational needs (SEN). These children have a right to be educated in a way that is best suited to them as individuals. The contradictions that occur between the theories and policies imply the experience at a local level dramatically affects the emotional and practical lives of the families involved. This is based on the heterogeneity of provision at the local level and wider society reactions to difference and disability. The privileging of the academic and the ‘normal’ can exclude the child with SEN and their families from engaging in a so-called ‘inclusive’ society.
This study demonstrates that parents are disappointed, excluded, compromised and frustrated both emotionally and in response to expectations of support. However in the face of this I reveal, that even though parents have been depressed, taken anti-depressants, turned to alcohol, felt suicidal, suffered in their relationships or wanted to desert their children, many have fought the health and education system, shown resilience, set up self help groups, complained and most importantly demonstrated that their children are worth fighting for.
Papers by Chrissie Rogers
Who is Trudy? What is Mother? Lalvani (2019: 2) describes, ‘Mother is often understood in dominant discourse as a person without further identity, or as existing without context; however, motherhood is a relational identity’ [emphasis in original]. In 2016, England, UK, I met Trudy, a 63-year-old mother, when she responded to my call for research participants about disability and criminal justice. We met again in 2017 for a follow-up, and then remotely via telephone and email in 2020, 2023 and 2024. She had a lot to say, as her autistic son Mathais had been so violent towards her, she was hospitalised on more than one occasion. The final time she was attacked, Mathais was arrested, charged, and incarcerated. I discovered on listening to her story she will always be Mother and will always be caring. Via Trudy’s story, we find care-full-ness, resolve and survival are obvious. Indeed, caring and care-full-ness ought to be privileged and positioned as not simply about the practical day-to-day aspects of caring (although these are important) but about how practical caring and emotional caring co-exist within the socio-political sphere and through our sociological imagination and care full storytelling. It is hard to hear how someone experiencing physical and emotional pain can continue to care for and about, and so deeply. Yet beyond Trudy’s personal troubles, this story tells us about the bigger picture. A dominant story of care is one that we want to hear, one that we are comfortable with, however, it often works to exclude. As Plummer (2019) suggests about narrative exclusion; symbolic violence is committed as we displace, stigmatise and scapegoat certain groups. Human beings, in this case, Trudy and Mathais, are only autonomous and interdependent, if they are safe and in beneficial relations of care. Fundamentally, as Noddings said thirty years ago, ‘[i]f caring is to be maintained, clearly, the one - caring must be maintained’ (Noddings, 1995: 26). This is certainly the case for Trudy, as ethical caring is nuanced, and care full practices ought to involve everyone via relational and interdependent responsibility.
An important read for all those studying and researching intellectual or learning disability, this book will be an essential resource in sociology, philosophy, criminology (law), social work, education and nursing in particular.
Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course.
Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.
The key themes that run through this study are that of disappointment, denial, and social exclusion/inclusion, without exception all three are experienced at different levels privately, personally and publicly. It is the emotional and practical difficulties experienced that affect the mental health, social relationships, career prospects, and general everyday living conditions for parents of children with impairments. However, an equally important issue is also apparent in the analysis of policy documents and cultural discourses. Denial of difficulty is found rhetorically in policies on ‘inclusive education’ and how the ‘public other’ responds to difficulty is in their aversion to ‘difficult difference’ and the ‘difficult other’. Policies on education provision and implementation directly affect children identified with special educational needs (SEN). These children have a right to be educated in a way that is best suited to them as individuals. The contradictions that occur between the theories and policies imply the experience at a local level dramatically affects the emotional and practical lives of the families involved. This is based on the heterogeneity of provision at the local level and wider society reactions to difference and disability. The privileging of the academic and the ‘normal’ can exclude the child with SEN and their families from engaging in a so-called ‘inclusive’ society.
This study demonstrates that parents are disappointed, excluded, compromised and frustrated both emotionally and in response to expectations of support. However in the face of this I reveal, that even though parents have been depressed, taken anti-depressants, turned to alcohol, felt suicidal, suffered in their relationships or wanted to desert their children, many have fought the health and education system, shown resilience, set up self help groups, complained and most importantly demonstrated that their children are worth fighting for.