University of Sunderland

DR CATHERINE DONOVAN

BA (Hons), MA, PhD
READER IN SOCIOLOGY

BIOGRAPHY

Catherine Donovan is a Reader in Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences, within a team that provides degrees in Sociology, Health and Social Care, and Criminology.  Her teaching interests involve families of choice, gender relations, reproductive technologies, sexuality and domestic violence.  She was in the Research Assessment Exercise (2008) as part of the Primary Care submission.

RESEARCH INTERESTS AND EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENTS

Catherine has conducted research in non-heterosexual communities for 17 years.  This has included studies of the ways in which lesbians are able to access donor insemination; how gay men who are HIV+ engage in safer sex; families of choice; and more recently, domestic violence in same sex and heterosexual relationships.  She is the co-author of Families of Choice and other Life Experiments (2001) (with Jeffrey Weeks and Brian Heaphy) which reported on the biggest study of LGB intimate and family relationships in the UK to date; and the co-editor (with Angelia Wilson) of a special edition of the journal Sexualities exploring same sex parenting. 

CURRENT WORK

Catherine is working on a number of projects at the moment.  She is the project manager of an longitudinal, 5-year evaluation of the NRF funded Domestic Abuse Intervention Programme in the North East and Cumbria which is now in its last year.  This work focuses on both process and outcome evaluation of projects providing a holistic approach to domestic violence, providing services to victim/survivors and their children, and perpetrators.  Catherine is also working on the data collected as part of an ESRC funded project comparing love and violence in same sex and heterosexual relationships.  This was a collaborative project with Professor Marianne Hester at the University of Bristol which was multi-method, producing the biggest in-depth survey of domestic violence in same sex relationships in the UK to date.  Developing out of this work is also a research project being developed in collaboration with a colleague in London to explore the barriers to referring LGBT domestic violence survivors to Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs).  Finally, Catherine is working with Frankie Williams, a colleague in Community and Youth Work Studies at the University to contribute to a collection of work focussing on bridging the gap between LGBT activism and research.  This builds on the scoping exercise Catherine and Frankie undertook of services in Sunderland and their accessibility to LGBT service users. 

POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION

Catherine is Director of Studies for:

Rick Bowler, `Building a critical intercultural pedagogical practice for youth work educators'.

Gillian Denny, `An Exploration of Racist Offenders in the North East of England: A Narrative Approach'.

Abby Silva, `Alcohol and self harm:  A critical exploration of women's coping strategies'.

Angela Wilcock, `Domestic Violence: An exploration of how help-seeking intervention information is communicated to the general public'.

Cris McCurley, (MPhil) `The impact of Forced Marriage and Honour Based Violence on the lives of South Asian women living in the North East of England'.

And Co-Supervisor for:

Jane Davies, `A Critical Investigation of the Coverage of `race' on ITE Programmes in England and Student Teachers' Responses to such Provision'.

Patricia Smith, `Social and Educational Initiatives in East Durham between 1985 and 2005: perceptions of experiences'.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND RESEARCH REPORTS

Sole author:

Donovan, C. (2006) 'Genetics, Fathers and Families: an exploration of the impact of the growing social and legal importance of genetic fathers in Britain' Journal of Social and Legal Studies Vol 15(4): 495-511.

Donovan, C. (2008) `It's not really seen as an issue, you know, lesbian infertility it's kind of "what's that?"': Lesbians' unsuccessful experiences of medicalised donor insemination', Medical Sociology Online, Vol 3(1): 15-24.

Co-Authored:

' Same Sex Intimacies.  Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments' (London: Routledge, 2001).

Donovan, C. & Hester M. (2008) `Because she was my first girlfriend, I didn't know any different':  Making the case for mainstreaming same-sex sex/relationship education'. Journal of Sex Education, Vol 8(3): 277-287.

Donovan, C. & Wilson, A. (2008) `Integrity & Imagination: Exploring the Narrative Process of Lesbian Couples Becoming Parents' in Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol 10(7): 649-665.