Kefan Xue

 Kefan is a fourth-year DPhil candidate in Area Studies at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Professor Rachel Murphy. Her research interests include the sociology of childhood and family, care, and gender inequalities. Before starting her PhD, Kefan obtained her MPhil and BA in Educational Research from the University of Cambridge and Warwick.
 

Kefan is particularly interested in young caregivers; they are children and young people who undertake caregiving roles and responsibilities for their ill or disabled family members. Her DPhil thesis explores the lives and experiences of this ‘hidden’ group in China, which involves 15 months of fieldwork with 30 young caregiver families in rural and urban areas, funded by the British Association for International and Comparative Education. While contributing to the sociology of China and the global childhood literature, Kefan conceptualises ‘children’s caregiving’ in the Chinese sociocultural context.
 

In addition to her thesis project, Kefan has been participating in several collaborations and has been published in the Sex Education and other leading journals. Meanwhile, she has designed and taught undergraduate and postgraduate students within and beyond Oxford. These include teaching qualitative research methods and courses related to gender and education.