Dr. Penny Tinkler

Biography

Penny Tinkler's academic career straddles the disciplines of sociology and history. She completed her undergraduate degree in history at the University of Sussex and obtained her PhD in the cultural construction of girlhood from Lancaster University’s Educational Research Department. She has held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Centre for Women’s Studies and joined the Sociology Department at the University of Manchester in 1993. Tinkler's research focuses on two inter-related fields: Gender History with particular reference to girlhood, visual culture, consumption, and aging, and biographical visual methods, including photographic methods. She is a member of the British Sociological Association, the Women’s History Network, the Gender & Education Association, and the Social History Society. Her current research interests include the historical experiences of women born between 1939 and 1952 and how these experiences have shaped their identities. She is the principal investigator for the ESRC-funded project 'Transitions Mobilities: Girls Growing Up in Britain from 1954 to 1976' which investigates the implications of these women's experiences on their later-life identities. Tinkler has contributed extensively to the literature on girls' leisure, consumption, and education, having published on topics such as the cultural construction of girlhood and the feminization of smoking. She actively supervises PhD students focusing on gender, age, youth cultures, and education, and teaches modules in visualizing society and research design.

Research Interests

Experience