Dr Laura Fenton

Population Health, School of Medicine and Population Health

Research Associate

l.m.fenton@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2980

Regent Court (ScHARR)

Full contact details

Dr Laura Fenton
Population Health, School of Medicine and Population Health
Regent Court (ScHARR)
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA

Profile

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

PhD in Sociology, University of Manchester
Masters of Sociology, York University (Canada)
Honours Bachelor of Arts, University of Toronto (Canada)

Research interests: 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

Journal articles

Stevely AK, Gray LA, Fairbrother H, Fenton L, Henney M & Holmes J (2023) 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
Fenton L & Tinkler P (2023) 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.
Pennay A, Törrönen J, Herold MD, Fenton L, MacLean S, Caluzzi G, Fairbrother H, Frank VA, Samuelsson E & Holmes J (2022) “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.
Burgess A, Yeomans H & Fenton L (2022) ‘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.
Stevely A, Vashishtha R, Fairbrother H, Fenton L, Henney M, Livingston M & Holmes J (2022) 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.
Tinkler P, Cruz R & Fenton L (2021) Recomposing persons: Scavenging and storytelling in a birth cohort archive. History of the Human Sciences, 34(3-4), 266-289.
Fenton L (2019) Book Review Symposium: Jennifer Mason, Affinities: Potent Connections in Personal Life. Sociology, 53(5), 977-978.
Lang L, Fenton L & Tinkler P () Living with other women’s lives: ‘research resonance’ in the context of life history interviewing. Women's History Review, 1-16.
Tinkler P, Fenton L & Lang L () The (im)mobilities of COVID-19 in later life: burning and building generational bridges. Ageing and Society, 1-23.
Fenton L, Fairbrother H, Whitaker V, Henney M, Stevely AK & Holmes J () Geographies of alcohol and generation: examining the decline in youth drinking in England through a spatial lens. Drug and Alcohol Review.
Fenton L, Fairbrother H, Whitaker V, Henney M, Stevely A & Holmes J () ‘When I came to university, that’s when the real shift came’: alcohol and belonging in English higher education. Journal of Youth Studies.
Caluzzi G, Fenton L, Holmes J, MacLean S, Pennay A, Fairbrother H & Törrönen J () ‘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.
Tinkler P, Fenton L & Cruz R () Introducing ‘resonance’: Revisioning the relationship between youth and later life in women born 1939–52. The Sociological Review, 003802612211402-003802612211402.
Woodward S & Fenton L () Editorial: Love Island: Gender, Sexuality and Intimate Relationships. Frontiers in Sociology, 6.

Chapters

Dias-Lewandowska D, Fenton L, Goodman S & Kümin B (2022) Altered states, Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication (pp. 501-522). Routledge
Fenton L, Markham C & Wilkinson S (2022) Bright Lights, No City: Investigating Young People’s Suburban and Rural Drinkscapes, Youth Beyond the City (pp. 116-134). Bristol University Press
Yeomans H, Fenton L & Burgess A (2022) Risk, Control and Hyper-Moderate Drinking Amongst Generation Z, Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course (pp. 151-176). Springer International Publishing
Thurnell-Read T & Fenton L (2022) Introduction: Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course, Alcohol, Age, Generation and the Life Course (pp. 1-25). Springer International Publishing
Dias-Lewandowska D, Fenton L, Goodman S & Kümin B (2022) ALTERED STATES: Changing conditions of excess in European drinking cultures1, Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication (pp. 501-522).
Cruz R, Tinkler P & Fenton L (2021) The kinship of bioinformation1, Bioinformation Worlds and Futures (pp. 54-74). Routledge

Professional activities and memberships: 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.