Dr Caroline Gatrell
PhD Lancaster, MBA Lancaster (awarded with Distinction), MA London, BA Manchester
Lecturer
Department
Management Learning and Leadership
Teaching
I undertake the full spectrum of teaching responsibilities: lectures, seminars, dissertation supervision face-to-face and on-line. Presently I am involved in teaching on my Department's full-time and part-time MA programmes, as well as the School's research training programme and the MSc in Managment.
I enjoy teaching on relationships, personal lives and management practices at postgraduate and undergraduate levels. I especially convening the module on the Sociology of Childbirth which I teach each year to undergraduate medical students at Lancaster.
Research Interests
My research centres on relationships and personal lives in the context of maternal and paternal bodies; health; work-life balance; family practices and employment. With a commitment to developing new sociological perspectives on relationships and personal lives, I examine the interrelations between the labour of parenting (reproductive labour) and paid employment (productive labour). I undertake these investigations through theoretically informed empirical research, drawing upon notions of gender and the body. Specifically, I explore the embodied and emotional experiences of mothers and fathers in relation to children; household labour; paid work and personal relationships. In particular, I focus on the ‘leaky’ maternal body and the gendered nature of management practices. Additionally, I consider the impact of management cultures and practices on the mental and physical well-being of mothers and fathers. I investigate the dynamics of relationships, intimacies and everyday lives using mixed research methods, most recently developing innovative methodological approaches through the collection and analysis of netnographic data.
Current Research
In addition to the research project 'Work Life Balance: Working for Fathers', I am developing research on the interralations between the maternal body, employment and health. I currently have three research monographs in progress:
1. Peyton, N. and Gatrell, C. Managing Lives, The embodiment of the Priesthood in Church of England Clergy.
2. Bevan, V. and Gatrell, C. Knowing her place: positioning Women in Science.
3. Gatrell, C. Managing the Maternal Body: Paid work, personal labour and motherhood
Research Grants
'Work Life Balance: Working for Fathers? Lottery Research Fund (2009 – 2011): Awarded £332,000 jointly with the charity Working Families from the Lottery Research Fund.Purpose: As P.I. in collaboration with ‘Working Families’. and with Simon Burnett, Cary Cooper and Paul Sparrow, I am exploring paternal well-being in the context of employment and workplace stress.
Embodying Maternal Management (2007 – 2008): Awarded £3,259 in 2007 from University’s Small Grants CommitteePurpose: A qualitative research project investigating the conflict between mothers’ professional productive labour and the labour of maternity. This research will inform policy and HR practices in a climate which seeks to retain the talent of highly qualified women.
Staying the course? How part-time PhD students manage their own learning (2007 – 2009)Awarded £2929 from the LUMS Pump Priming SchemePurpose: to explore how professionally and/or managerially employed part-time PhD students manage their own learning.
Hard Labour: The cultural politics of reproduction (with Imogen Tyler, Sociology) awarded £2,000 from Lancaster University Institute for Advanced Studies.Purpose: development of a significant cross-departmental research project and network
Workshop: Maternal bodies November 2, 2005
Conference: Birth March 6 & 7, 2007
Profile
2005 Lancaster University Research Prize.
Awarded in recognition of pioneering research on the sociology of mothers, fathers and employment
2005 Lancaster University Media and Communications Prize.
Awarded in recognition of successful dissemination of research on parenting and employment to a wide set of audiences
View all publications (23)
Journal/Serial (10)
Book (7)
Chapter in Book (6)
Selected Publications
- Gatrell CJ, Cooper CL and Kossek E, forthcoming, Women in Management and Business, a Reader, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
- Gatrell CJ, 2010, 'Policy and the pregnant body at work: strategies of secrecy, silence and supra-performance', Gender, Work and Organization
- Gatrell CJ, 2010, 'Putting pregnancy in its place: conceiving pregnancy as carework in the workplace', Health and Place
- Gatrell CJ, 2009, 'Safeguarding subjects? A reflexive appraisal of researcher accountability in qualitative interviews', Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, vol 4(2), pp 110-122
- Gatrell CJ, 2008, Embodying Women's Work, Open University Press, Maidenhead, ISBN: 9780335219902
- Gatrell CJ and Swan SE, 2008, Gender and Diversity in Management: A Concise Introduction, Sage, London, ISBN: 1412928249
- Gatrell CJ and Cooper CL, 2008, 'Work-life balance: working for whom?', European Journal of International Management, vol 2(1), pp 71-86
- Gatrell CJ and Cooper CL, 2007, '(No) cracks in the glass ceiling: women managers, stress and the barriers to success', in The Handbook on Women in Business and Management, (eds) Bilimoria D and Piderit SK, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 57-77, ISBN: 1845424328
- Gatrell CJ, 2007, 'A fractional commitment? Part-time employment and the maternal body', The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol 18(3), pp 462-475
- Gatrell CJ, 2007, 'Whose child is it anyway? The negotiation of parental entitlements within marriage', The Sociological Review, vol 55(2), pp 353-373
