This seminar will take place in rooms 1 & 2, Iris Murdoch Building, University of Stirling, on Monday 12 March, 2pm.

Professor Agnes Nairn is Professor of Marketing at EM-Lyon Business School in France, Visiting Professor at Hult International Business School in London and a Research Fellow at the University of Bath. Her research focuses on the influence of the commercial world on children and draws on psychology, sociology, culture theory and neuroscience with methodologies ranging from experiments to ethnographies.  Her research has been published in a range of international journals but seeks above all to contribute to social policy and debate.  She has published a range of policy papers for National Consumer Council, Family and Parenting institute, UNICEF and a number of government departments.  She is a frequent media commentator on marketing to children and co-author with Ed Mayo of the book Consumer Kids.

In 2007 the UNICEF Report Card put UK children at the bottom of the well-being league table for the world’s industrialised nations.  In response, the previous Labour government gave UNICEF UK a grant to explore what lies behind this stark statistic.  In 2010 and 2011 Professor Agnes Nairn and Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute were commissioned to carry out qualitative research which took them and an ethnographic film crew to 24 families across Spain, Sweden and the UK.  It also took them into 21 schools around the three countries.  The brief was to explore the dynamics between materialism, inequality and wellbeing and the findings exposed a complex but starkly contrasting picture of family life in the three countries.  The policy implications are far reaching and profound.

Agnes will talk about the research and invites discussion on what the findings mean for researchers and policy makers.

For more information or to confirm your attendance please contact Diane Dixon, tel: 01786 467390, email:  d.m.dixon@stir.ac.uk