Dr Gareth Thomas

(he/him)

Publication

• Date
• Type

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

Jack Hogton

Rachael Walker

Joey Toogood

Ellie Reynolds

Kristina Addis

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