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Gareth Thomas

Dr Gareth Thomas

(he/him)

Comment
Media commentator

Teams and roles for Gareth Thomas

Overview

I am a Reader in the School of Social Sciences. I am a sociologist interested in disability, health and illness, medicine, reproduction, and stigma. My primary empirical focus in recent years has been the experiences of disabled people and their families / allies, and configurations of disability in different spaces (e.g., prenatal screening; popular media; the arts). My work has been supported by the British Academy, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Health and Care Research Wales, and the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, among other organisations.

My research has been published across disciplines in journals including - but not limited to - Sociology of Health and Illness, The Sociological Review, Sociology, Medical Humanities, The British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Research Online, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, Health and Place, Health Risk and Society, Current Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, cultural geographies, Journal of Consumer Culture, and Men and Masculinities.

I have published 3 books: 1) Down's Syndrome Screening and Reproductive Politics: Care, Choice, and Disability in the Prenatal Clinic (2017); 2) Disability, Normalcy, and the Everyday (2018, with Dikaios Sakellariou); 3) Recalibrating Stigma: Sociologies of Health and Illness (2025, with Oli Williams, Tanisha Spratt, and Amy Chandler). This last book is available open-access with Bristol University Press here.

I am currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sociology of Health and Illness with Janice McLaughlin. I am co-founder and co-convenor of the Cardiff Interdisciplinary Network on Disability (CIND) at Cardiff University.

Publication

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

  • Sakellariou, D. and Thomas, G. 2016. Disability and everyday worlds. Presented at: 76th annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Vancouver, Canada, 29 March- 2 April 2016.

Monographs

Thesis

Websites

Research

My broad research interests are disability, health and illness, medicine, reproduction, and stigma. From January to December 2023, I undertook a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (grant MCFSS22\220015) exploring how learning-disabled adults cultivate narratives which celebrate and recognise their worth and humanity. I have also recently completed a study on older people's involvement in walking football.

Teaching

In the last few years, I have convened and taught on the modules 'Contemporary Inequalities', 'Sociology of Stigma', 'Live Theory', 'introduction to Sociology', 'Sociological Inquiries', 'Health, Medicine and Society', and 'Advanced Concepts in Contemporary Sociology'. I have also taught on various other undergraduate and postgraduate modules including 'Social Research Methods', 'Ethnography', 'Digital Society', and 'Community, Sustainable Health, and Wellbeing'. I also taught for several years in the Cardiff University School of Medicine.

In the 2025-26 academic year, I will teach across several undergraduate and postgraduate modules, including: 'Advanced Ethnography'; 'Comedy, Modernity, and Social Theory'; 'Introduction to Sociology'; 'Qualitative Methodologies'; 'Sociological Inquiries', and; 'Sociology of Stigma'.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Biography

Previous Appointments

  • Reader, Cardiff University, 2023-
  • Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University, 2019-2023
  • Lecturer, Cardiff University, 2015-2019
  • Research Associate, Cardiff University, 2014-2015
  • Ph.D. Sociology, Cardiff University, 2010-2014
  • M.Sc. Social Science Research Methods (Distinction), Cardiff University, 2009-2010
  • Econ Sociology (First Class Honours), Cardiff University, 2006-2009

Speaking engagements

*The COVID-19 pandemic limited invited talks and conference presentations, particularly between March 2020 and December 2022*

Selected Invited Talks (2017-)
- Anthropology, prenatal care, and ‘disability worlds’. Northeastern University, 12 March 2025
- Disability, prenatal testing, and future imaginaries. Northeastern University, 10 March 2025
- ‘Can you tell me what ethics means?’: doing (inclusive) research with people with learning disabilities. BSA Sociology of Mental Health Study Group (Online), 29 April 2024
- ‘The boots will be on the coffin!’: sport and the ‘successful ageing’ agenda. Loughborough University, 28 February 2024
- ‘I’m a seed that’s been kept in a dark hole for so long and now it’s time for it to become a tree!’: Cultivating counter narratives of disability through the arts. University of Leeds, 8 December 2023
- ‘Can you tell me what ethics means?’: reflections on doing research with people with learning disabilities. Manchester Metropolitan University, 7 December 2023
- Critical disability studies and Erving Goffman: the (im)possibilities of convergence. iHuman, University of Sheffield, 6 December 2023
- ‘So what if we have a disability? That actually makes us more fun to be with!’ Cultivating counter narratives of learning disabilities through the arts. University of Bristol, 16 November 2023
- Down’s syndrome screening and reproductive politics: care, choice, disability in the prenatal clinic. BSA Yorkshire Group Seminar, University of Sheffield, 31 January 2019
- Down’s syndrome screening and reproductive politics. Newcastle University, 17 January 2019
- Down’s syndrome screening in the UK. St Andrew’s University Osaka, Japan, 23 September 2018
- Down’s syndrome screening and reproductive politics. Peking University, China, 10 November 2017
- Imaginaries of difference: disability publics. CareNet Research Group Seminar. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, 22 June 2017
- Tracking the (risky) maternal body: pregnancy in a digital age. CareNet Research Group Seminar. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, 22 June 2017

Selected Conference Presentations (2017-)
- ‘We want the world to know who we are and what we can do’: cultivating counter-stories of learning disability through the arts. Disability Studies Conference. University of Leeds, 4 September 2024
- Later-life masculinities: (re)forming the gendered lives of older men. Journeys of Masculinity: Bodies, Identities, Wellbeing and the Life Course (Online), 22 March 2024 
- A world of in/difference: living with learning disability. BSA Medical Sociology Annual Conference. University of Sussex, UK, 15 September 2023
- ‘The bless them brigade’: deference, demeanour, and disability in a community café. EU Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism Meeting 2023, Cardiff, UK, 5 July 2023
- A world of in/difference?: living with learning disability in the UK. Nordic Network on Disability Research. Reykjavik, Iceland, 11 May 2023
- Building a ‘Down’s syndrome community’: the making and unmaking of ‘inhabitable’ worlds for parents of disabled children. Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. Norfolk, Vancouver, 22 March 2021
- Building a ‘Down’s syndrome community’: the making and unmaking of ‘inhabitable’ worlds for parents of disabled children. Chronic Living 2021. University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 5 March 2021
- ‘We don’t want TV…we want resources’: unpacking (counter) configurations of disability in popular media. BSA Medical Sociology 51st Annual Conference. University of York, 12 September 2019
- ‘Disability worlds’: enacting positive imaginaries of ‘difference’. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S 2019). Sheraton Hotel, New Orleans, USA, 6 September 2019
- Counter-configurations of disability: the ‘inhabitable’ worlds of people with Down’s syndrome. European Sociological Association Conference 2019. University of Manchester, 21 August 2019
- The elephant in the consultation room: configuring disability in prenatal care. Science in Public 2018. Cardiff University, 17 December 2018
- Light, connectivity, and place: public interactions in a (dark) post-industrial town. Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Annual Conference 2018. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 10 August 2018
- Making un/inhabitable worlds: reproductive medicine and disability publics. Science in Public. University of Sheffield, 11 July 2017
- Locating Down’s syndrome: stigma, disability publics, and reproductive medicine. BSA Annual Conference. University of Manchester, 4 April 2017

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising students in the following areas:

  • Disability
  • Health and illness
  • Medical sociology
  • Parenthood
  • Reproduction

Current supervision

Melissa Martin

Melissa Martin

Jack Hogton

Jack Hogton

Rachael Walker

Rachael Walker

Joey Toogood

Joey Toogood

Ellie Reynolds

Ellie Reynolds

Kristina Addis

Kristina Addis

Kara Smythe

Kara Smythe

Past projects

  • Jones, Mitchell. Education Provision for Teenagers with Cancer in Wales: Education Practitioners’ Perspectives [PD, co-supervised with Jemma Hawkins], 2025
  • Jimenez, Patricia. A digital competence framework in the making: perceptions, cultures, and practices [PhD, co-supervised with Jamie Lewis], 2023
  • Alnamnakani, Amani. A qualitative study exploring the lives of disabled Muslim women in the UK [PhD, co-supervised with Dikaios Sakellariou], 2023
  • Wright, Heather. What are the experiences of English NHS managers, clinicians and patients of the National cancer waiting times targets? [PD, co-supervised with Alison Bullock], 2022
  • Dearing, Kim. The (un)intended consequences of employment policy for people with learning disabilities. Cardiff University, UK [PhD, co-supervised with Phil Brown and Ralph Fevre], 2021
  • Harper, Lydia. Living with Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy: exploring experiences and perspectives of a disruptive mitochondrial condition. Cardiff University, UK [co-supervised with Adam Hedgecoe], 2019

Contact Details

Email [email protected]
Telephone +44 29208 70945
Campuses Glamorgan Building, Room 2.35, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA

Research themes

School of Social Sciences Reader makes BBC Radio appearance to discuss prenatal screening

School of Social Sciences Reader makes BBC Radio appearance to discuss prenatal screening

09 August 2024

Prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome seen as “routine practice”

Prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome seen as “routine practice”

24 April 2017

Graphic Moves: dynamic exhibition is the next step in the Productive Margins programme

Graphic Moves: dynamic exhibition is the next step in the Productive Margins programme

29 April 2015

External profiles