Contributors to Volume 8, Number 1

Chris Allen
Chris Allen is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures at the University of Salford, having previously held lecturing posts at the University of Salford and Bradford and research posts at the Universities of Cardiff and Manchester. He has previously published in peer- reviewed journals in the fields of sociology, social policy and urban studies.
Cherylynn Bassani
Cherylynn Bassani is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Calgary. She has written articles on Japanese family forms and changing family, social capital theory in the Western and non-Western context, and the well-being of children. Her dissertation cross-nationally examines children?s academic well-being in Japan, Canada, and the United States through the analysis of social capital in the home, school and community.

Bum Soo Chon, George Barnett and Young Choi
Bum Soo Chon
Bum Soo Chon (Ph. D., State University of New York at Buffalo, 2002) is a senior researcher at the Munwha Broadcasting Company, Seoul, Korea. His research interests concern cultural aspects of globalization and structures of international communication network.
ccblade2@yahoo.co.kr

George A. Barnett
Department of Communication
School of Informatics
State University of New York at Buffalo
George A. Barnett received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Illinois, in Sociology, and his Ph.D. in Communication from Michigan State University (1976). Currently, he is Professor and Chair of Communication at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has written extensively on organizational, mass, international and intercultural, and political communication, as well as the diffusion of innovations. His current research focuses on international telecommunications and its role on social and economic development and globalization.

Young Choi
Young Choi (Ph.D, State University of New York at Buffalo) is associate professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies at Seoul, Korea, where he teaches telecommunications and online journalism. His current research interests include new media technology and public journalism in online environment.

Stephen Gorard
Stephen Gorard is a Professor at the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, having previously been a secondary school teacher/manager and adult education lecturer. His current research interests include the impact of market forces on schools (<www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/markets>), underachievement (e.g. 'The differential attainment of boys and girls at school', BERJ, 27, 2, 125-139), teacher supply and retention (e.g. ELWa grant 2002), widening adult participation in learning (e.g. 'Creating a Learning Society', Policy Press, 2002), the role of technology in lifelong learning (e.g. 'The Information Age', University of Wales Press, 2002), informal learning ('Adults-Learning@home', ESRC grant 2001-2004), the role of targets (e.g. 'Privileging the visible', BERJ, 28, 3, 2002), and developing international indicators of inequality (<www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/equity>). His main task at present is to direct the Research Capacity-building support network for the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme (<www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/capacity>). He is an advocate of the third methodological movement, involving the judicious use of mixed methods.
Stephen Hicks and Katherine Watson
Dr Katherine Watson works in the Department of Health Care Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her main teaching and research interests are the application of cultural and media studies to the field of health and nursing practice; lesbian, gay, feminist and queer studies; and qualitative methodologies. Her PhD is concerned with analysing the discourses of homophobia and their consequences for communicative action. She is currently co-editing a text with Martin King called Representing Health: Discourses of Health & Illness in the Media (Palgrave, forthcoming).
k.watson@mmu.ac.uk

Dr Stephen Hicks works in the School of Community, Health Sciences & Social Care at Salford University, where he is postgraduate course leader for the Post-Qualifying Child Care award. He is currently carrying out a project called 'Queer Genealogies' which investigates ideas about contemporary forms of lesbian and gay parenting. He is a founder member and the Chair of Gay & Lesbian Adoption & Foster Families (GLAFF), and with Janet McDermott he co-edited Lesbian & Gay Fostering & Adoption: Extraordinary Yet Ordinary (1999, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers).
s.hicks@salford.ac.uk

Myra Hird
Myra J. Hird is a lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University, Belfast. She is the author of several articles on materiality, sexual difference, intersex and transgender, including 'Intersex: A Test-case for Psycho-analytic Theory?' in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; 'Gender's Nature: Intersexuality, Transsexualism and the 'Sex'/ 'Gender' Binary in Feminist Theory; 'For a Sociology of Transsexualism' in Sociology; 'Unidentified Pleasures: Gender Identity and its Failure' in Body and Society; 'Out/perfoming Our Selves - Invitation for Dialogue' in Sexualities; and is completing a sole-authored book on the relation of intersex and transsex with theories of sexual difference.

Ashwin Kumar
Ashwin Kumar is a PhD student at the College of Social & Health Science, School of Nursing, Family & Community Health, University of Western Sydney, Australia. His doctoral research, ?The lived experience of using alternative medicine?, is a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study into the use of alternative medicine for individual health care. His main research and teaching area is the Sociology of Health and Illness. He may be contacted at: ashwin@justinternet.com.au
Carole Truman
Carole Truman is lecturer in the Department of Applied Social Science at Lancaster University. She has a long-standing interest in the relationship between social research and socially marginalised groups. She has conducted a wide range of experience in policy and applied research with a particular emphasis on participatory and emancipatory research approaches. In addition to authoring refereed publications in the fields of health and social care, she has successfully co-edited three books, including Re-thinking Social Research (Avebury 1994) and Research and Inequality (UCL 2000). Her current research interests relate to the process and practice of user involvement in health and social care addressing areas such as user participation in service provision, mental health and health needs assessment.
Malcolm Williams
Malcolm Williams is a Principal Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Plymouth. His books include Making Sense of Social Research (Sage, 2003); Science and Social Science (Routledge 2000); Knowing the Social World (edited with Tim May, Open University 1998) and Introduction to Philosophy of Social Research (also with Tim May, Routledge 1996). His empirical research interests include housing need and UK internal migration.
Copyright Sociological Research Online, 2003