Janice McLaughlin is a Professor at the University of Newcastle, UK, and Subject Head of Sociology.She researches childhood disability with a particular focus on family life and on the social implications of medical intervention and diagnosis. She works across disability studies, social and medical anthropology, and childhood/youth studies in order to understand the multiple factors shaping childhood and disability, and the role of children themselves in shaping their lives. There is a strong focus on the significance of social interaction, narrative and embodiment in the development and maintenance of identity, but this is mediated by a need to consider questions of inequality, marginalisation and injustice. Edmund Coleman-Fountain is Research Fellow in Social Policy Research Unit, University of York. He received his PhD in sociology from Newcastle University in 2011 after which he worked in the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre. His research has focused on questions of difference, citizenship and equality in the identity narratives of lesbian and gay youths and disabled youths. His publications include Understanding Narrative Identity through Lesbian and Gay Youth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) .

Emma Clavering is currently a Teaching Fellow in Sociology, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. Her key research interests explore narratives of social and cultural identity in everyday worlds of family, kinship and self, with particular focus on consumer culture, particularly in relation to embodiment and notions of health and difference. She is a co-author, along with Janice McLaughlin, of Families Raising Disabled Children: Enabling Care and Social Justice (Palgrave 2008).