Sara Arber

Sara Arber
Born	March 19, 1949 (1949-03-19) (age 62) Chingford, UK
Residence	Godalming UK
Fields	Sociology
Institutions	University of Surrey
Alma mater	London School of Economics
Known for	Sociology of Ageing and Gender Sociology of Sleep
Notable awards	Fellow of British Academy

Sara Arber is a British sociologist and Professor at University of Surrey.^[1] Professor Arber has previously held the position of President of British Sociological Association (1999–2001) and Vice President of the European Sociological Association (2005–2007). She is well known for her work on gender and ageing, inequalities in health and has pioneered research in the new field of sociology of sleep.^[2]

Career

Born in 1949 in Chingford and raised in Thames Ditton, Sara graduated from London School of Economics with a First in Sociology 1972. She went onto postgraduate study at University of London and University of Michigan before joining Sociology department of Surrey as a Lecturer in 1974. Being made professor in 1994 she acted as Head of Department 1996-2002 and Head of School of Human Sciences 2001-2004. She has served on various committees of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) since 1984 where she is currently member of the Grants Assessment Panel. As well as Presidency of the British Sociological Association she has also acted as President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Sociology of Ageing (2006–2010).

Work

Ageing and gender

One of Sara Arber's main areas of research has been in the field of the Sociology of Ageing and how gender identities develop in later life. Much of the seminal work in this discipline was developed together in Jay Ginn, such as Connecting Gender and Ageing in 1995 which won Age Concern prize for best book on Ageing in 1996 and Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships. In 2000 she established and is Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender (CRAG) at University of Surrey.

Sleep

Sara has been pioneering empirical research on the sociology of sleep since 2001. Current research is being done through SomnIA (Sleep in Ageing), a four year collaborative research project including researchers from sociology, psychology, neuroendocrinology, engineering, nursing and medicine.^[3] The SomNIA research, due to be completed in 2011, covers various aspects of quality of sleep particularly amongst older people in care. Part of this research which was led by Professor Arber was a survey of the sleeping habits of 14,000 households finding that one in 10 people are using medication to assist in getting to sleep, and women having more problems getting to sleep than men.^[4] She also is researching "The biomedical and sociological effects of sleep restriction" for EU Marie Curie research project focused on the effects of lack of sleep on health and wellbeing.

Selected works

• Arber, Sara; Ginn, Jay (1991). Gender and Later Life. ISBN 0803983972. 
• Arber, Sara; Ginn, Jay (1995). Connecting Gender and Ageing. ISBN 0335194702. 
• Arber, Sara; Attias-Donfut, Claudine (2000). The Myth of Generational Conflict: Family and State in Ageing Societies. ISBN 0415207703. 
• Arber, Sara; Davidson, Kate (2003). Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships. ISBN 0335213200. 

References

1. ^ "Sara Arber at University of Surrey". http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/people/sara_arber/. Retrieved 21 January 2011. 
2. ^ "Sociology of Sleep". http://www.sociologyofsleep.surrey.ac.uk/. Retrieved 21 January 2011. 
3. ^ "SomnIA". http://www.somnia.surrey.ac.uk/. Retrieved 8 February 2011. 
4. ^ "BBC News report". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12646090. Retrieved 8 February 2011. 

Academic offices
Preceded by David Morgan	President of the British Sociological Association 1999-2001	Succeeded by JohnScott

Persondata
Name	Arber, Sara
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	19 March 1949
Place of birth	Chingford, UK
Date of death
Place of death