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Professor Carol Thomas

Professor of Sociology

Degree: BA Sociology (1st class), PhD Sociology

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Disability Research CeDR, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, International Observatory on End of Life Care

Research Interests

Carol is Professor of Sociology, specialising in disability studies and the sociology of health and illness.

Her current research interests are in the following areas:

Disability Studies

• Carol is a member of the Executive Editorial Board of the international journal Disability and Society - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09687599.html, and has published widely in the field.
• She is the author of Female Forms: experiencing and understanding disability (1999) Buckingham: Open University Press,
• and Sociologies of Disability and Illness. Contested Ideas in Disability Studies and Medical Sociology (2007) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Sociology of Cancer

• Carol has a long-standing research interest in the sociology of cancer. She currently directs an ESRC funded research project entitled Narratives of Living and Dying with Cancer: Sociological Perspectives (ESRC ref: RES-000-22-2031).This involves secondary data analysis of interview data collected in the following two research projects (NHS funded), in which she was the principal investigator:
• The psychosocial needs of cancer patients and their main carers.Download the Research Report as an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file (1.9MB). Publications arising are available here in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat format.
• Patterns and preferences for place of final care and death among terminally ill cancer patients and their carers in the Morecambe bay area. The Executive Summary is available here in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat format.

Other Research Interests

• Carol has also researched and published in other fields, including: the nature of care, public health and health promotion, domestic labour and health, and women's health.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

• Disability Studies
• Sociology of Health and Illness / Medical Sociology (general)
• Cancer experiences
• End of lifeand palliative care
• Patient Experiences of theNational Health Serviceand other health care and therapy services.

Career details

• At Lancaster University, Carol joined the Institute for Health Research in 2002, having worked closely with colleagues in the IHR for a number of years from her location in the Department of Applied Social Science at Lancaster University.
• She has a 1st Class Honours degree in Sociology (University of Sheffield, 1980) and a PhD in Sociology (University of Warwick, 1987).

Selected Publications

Thomas C. (1999) Female Forms: Experiencing and Understanding Disability . Buckingham: Open University Press.

Thomas, C. (2001) Medicine, gender and disability: disabled women's health care encounters. Health Care for Women International , 22 (3) April-May 2001: 245-262.

Thomas, C. (2001) 'Feminism and Disability: The Theoretical and Political Significance of The Personal and the Experiential', in L. Barton (ed.) Disability, Politics and the Struggle for Change . London: David Fulton. (pp. 48-58)

Thomas, C. and Rigby, J. (2001) Women's Health in Europe: Beyond Epidemiology? In S. McLafferty, I. Dyke and N. Davis Lewis (eds) Geographies of Women's Health . London: Routledge (pp.23-40).

Thomas, C. and Corker, M. (2002) 'A Journey around the Social Model'. In M.Corker and T. Shakespeare (eds) Disability/Postmodernity: Embodying Disability Theory . London: Continuum, (pp18-31).

Thomas, C. (2002) 'The 'Disabled' Body', in M. Evans and E. Lee (eds.) Real Bodies . Basingstoke: Palgrave (pp.64-78).

Thomas, C. (2002) 'Disability Theory: Key Ideas, Issues and Thinkers', in C. Barnes, L.Barton, and M.Oliver (eds) Disability Studies Today . Cambridge: Polity (pp.38-57)

Thomas, C., Morris, S., Harman, J. (2002) Companions through cancer: the care given by informal carers in cancer contexts. Social Science and Medicine , 54(4):529-544.

Thomas, C., and Morris, S.M. (2002) Informal Carers in Cancer Contexts. European Journal of Cancer Care 11(3):178-182.

Thomas, C. (2003) 'Developing the social relational in the social model of disability: a theoretical agenda'. In C. Barnes (ed) The Social Model of Disability - Theory and Research . Leeds: The Disability Press (forthcoming)

Thomas, C. (2004) The UK Social Model of Disability: Rescuing a Social Relational Understanding of Disability. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research . 6(1): 22-36.

Thomas, C. (2004) How is disability understood? An examination of sociological approaches. Disability and Society, 19 (6): 569-583.

Swain, J., Barnes, C., French, S. and Thomas, C. (eds) (2004) Disabling Barriers - Enabling Environments (2 nd edition). London: Sage

Thomas C., Morris S.M. and Clark, D. (2004) Place of death: preferences among cancer patients and their carers. Social Science and Medicine 58(12): 2431-2444.

Thomas, C. (2005) The Place of Death of Cancer Patients: Can Qualitative Data Add to Known Factors? Social Science and Medicine,60 (11): 2597-2607.

Thomas, C. (2006) Disability and Gender: Some Reflections on Theory and Research. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research. 8 (2-3), 177-185.

Thomas, C. (2007) Sociologies of Disability and Illness. Contested Ideas in Disability Studies and Medical Sociology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Media

(2001) Video - Disability and the Sociological Imagination. Sociology and Social Policy Teaching and Learning Network (SSP2000) teaching resource: 25 min. video programme for undergraduate sociology and social policy students, featuring subject specialist speakers: Dr Carol Thomas, Professor Mike Oliver and Professor Colin Barnes. The video has been distributed to all Sociology and Social Policy Departments in the UK.

Associated Keywords: Cancer, Disability studies, Health, Social determinants of health, Social inequalities, Social justice, Social theory, Sociology, Supportive care

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