Ellie Lee

Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, Professor at the University of Kent

Ellie Lee has spent her research career mainly at the University of Kent, UK, where she established and directs the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies. Her research, and that of the Centre, focuses on the reasons for the re-casting of child-rearing as 'parenting' and the associated effects on family life. Their arguments are set out in the book Parenting Culture Studies. The development of risk-consciousness has been a key focus of the Centre's work; its research has explored the ways in which definitions of children as always 'at risk' and childhood as a 'risky' stage of life have increasingly influenced child-rearing, especially in Anglo-American societies. Their investigation's foucus on how inflated fears about many aspects of childhood have led to the parental role being defined as that of a 'risk manager,' responsible for monitoring the child—including through technology—to the detriment of both children and parents.