Sydney Chapados

Research Interests

• Childhood
• Neurobiology
• Poverty
• Governmentality
• Social Service Provision & Child Welfare
• Qualitative Methods

About: 

Sydney Chapados is currently pursuing a PhD in Sociology at Carleton University, where her research focuses on emerging approaches to understanding children’s experiences of harm, specifically the application of neurobiological and epigenetic science in explaining, preventing, and addressing these experiences. Since the late 1990s, research has highlighted how childhood trauma can profoundly impact the body’s neurological, immunological, and epigenetic expressions, leading to lifelong physiological effects, including chronic illness and premature death in adulthood. This emerging body of knowledge has significantly influenced therapeutic and institutional practices, as well as health and social service policies, while dominating the self-help industry. Sydney’s work examines how neurobiological and epigenetic perspectives on harm have developed within a broader socio-political context where childhood, bodily experiences, illness, and governance are publicly and politically debated.

Throughout her career, Sydney has worked closely with children and families experiencing homelessness in emergency shelters. Her previous research has explored policy responses to child poverty and the effects of COVID-19 on homeless populations in Ottawa. She has also contributed writings on children’s rights, education, social services, and urbanism.

Publications:

Chapados, S. (2023). Cycles and Spaces of Child Poverty in Ontario. In  Berman, R., Albanese, P. and Chen, X. (Ed.) Sociological Research and Urban Children and Youth (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 32), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 139-154.

Chapados, S., Roebuck, B., Macdonald, S., Dej, E., Hust, C., & McGlinchey, D. (2022). Discourses of Contagion, Homelessness, & COVID-19. Qualitative Research in Health.

Chapados, S. (2022). Upsetting Constructions of Safety: An Auto-Ethnography of a Suburb. Contingent Horizons: The York University Student Journal of Anthropology. 6(1)

Chapados, S. (2021). Disrupting notions of choice: Missteps in Ontario’s COVID-19 back-to-school plan. Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights, 8(1) Chapados, S. (2020). As schools prepare to open during Covid-19, are the kids alright? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/as-schools-prepare-to-reopen-during-covid-19-are-the-kids-alright-142976