Social Support and Motherhood

Book excerpt: Drawing on her long experience as an academic researcher and writer, Ann Oakley develops a sociology of the research process itself, telling the story of how a research project is undertaken and what happens during it, to both researchers and those who are researched. This remarkable book focuses on a topic of great importance in the provision of health services – caring and social support. Setting neglect of this topic in the wider context of an ongoing crisis in gendering knowledge, Social support and motherhood is now reissued for a contemporary audience. It has much resonance for social science researchers and others interested in the experiences of mothers, and in the relations between social research, academic knowledge and public policy.