Living Gender in Diverse Times

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From coverage of Miley Cyrus' declaration that 'You Can Just Be Whatever You Want to Be' in 'Time Magazine', the introduction of a gender fluid character into the video game 'Sims 4' and Facebook's launch of multiple gender 'options', the last year and half of media coverage lends support to the 'Financial Times' End of Year (2015) pronouncement 'Year in a word: Trans: Gender discussion becomes a nuanced, fluid , 'non-binary' affair'.While there has been significant cultural interest in the ways in which young people are moving away from the traditional binary identities of male and female and adopting gendered expressions that destabilise conventional gendered norms. Academic research has yet to explore the ways in which the meanings of gender have changed for young people or to address the implications of this on gender as a social category more broadly. The overall aim of this project is to gain in-depth evidence driven knowledge of the understandings and practices of gender in the 21st C. UK amongst young people between the ages of 15-24. The project seeks to go beyond an exploration of individual understandings by addressing the ways in which the social structures of gender, class, race, age, sexuality and geographical location impact on the access to, and the experiences of, non-traditional gender identities and practices. The project will also explore the ways in which young people negotiate their gender identities and practices with families, partners, peer groups and friendship networks, leisure and social media spaces and within the formal spaces of education and work. Finally the project will consider the impact of the media, at the levels of consumption and production, on young people's gendered identities and expressions. The project will be organised around 6 themes, which work together to address the key spheres of young people's lives at individual, collective, social and discursive levels. Theme 1: Understanding Gender will explore how gender diversity is variously understood in contemporary society. Theme 2: Practicing Gender will explore the ways in which shifting understandings feed into everyday gendered practices and expressions.Theme 3: Living Gender in Intimate and Personal Lives will explore how contemporary gendered expressions are negotiated through the wider contexts of families and kinship, intimate relationships, peer groups and friendship networks, leisure and social media spaces. Theme 4: The Social Organisation of Gender will explore how contemporary gendered expressions are negotiated in the formal spaces of education and employment. Theme 5: Structuring Gender will explore the impact of gender, class, race, age, sexuality and geographical location on gendered understandings and practices.Theme 6: Cultural Mediations of Gender will explore the processes and effects of popular culture around gender diversity as they are produced and consumed across different sections of society. A range of qualitative methods will be employed across the 6 themes to enable the project to access rich data on meanings, attitudes and decision making processes, and broader structural and discursive influences. These include: 20 focus groups, 60 one-to-one interviews, an interactive website and blog, multi-media diary and visual methods, and theatre production through which the project will consider young people's contemporary understandings and practices of gender. The project's key themes - the body, gender identity, gendered identities, practices and expressions, and shifting notions of masculinity and femininity are key to a range of disciplines across the social sciences and humanities. Findings will be disseminated to interdisciplinary academic audiences; bringing new knowledge on a highly topical subject to the fields of gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, education, media studies, and youth studies. The project will have wide non-academic reach as detailed in PtI.