I received my PhD in sociology from the University of Waterloo in 1979 and my MA in sociology from York University in 1972.

The main focus of my research is the medicalization and biomedicalization of everyday life. I am especially interested in media portrayal of mental and physical health issues over time, across place, and as directed towards audience groups differing by social category. My current research is focused on children’s mental health and developmental issues.

• Thérèse Casgrain Fellowship (SSHRC): The Politicization of Breast Cancer.
• Grace M. Anderson Fellowship.
• Best Paper Prize: Cancer, Heart Disease and AIDS in the Media. Commission on Health Communication, Speech Communication Association.
• Laurier Alumni Faculty Mentoring Award.
• University Research Professor.

I have research assistantship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the social construction of children’s mental health issues. I am engaged in ongoing studies of media representations of mental health issues, refugee and immigrant children’s mental health and the criminalization of children’s mental health. Contact me for more information.

I am willing to supervise graduate students in the areas of health and medical sociology.

• Clarke, J. (2014). “Tracking governance: advice to mothers about managing the behavior of their children in a leading Canadian women’s magazine during two disease regimes.” Critical Public Health. 24(3): 253-265.
• Clarke, J. (2013). “Medicalisation and changes in advice to mothers about children’s mental health issues 1970 to 1990 as compared to 1991 to 2010: evidence from Chatelaine magazine.” Health, Risk & Society. 15(5): 416-431.
• Clarke, J. N. (2013) “Surplus Suffering: The Search for Help When a Child has Mental-Health Issues.” Child and Family Social Work. 213(18): 217-225.
• Clarke. J. N. (2012). “Surplus Suffering, Mothers Don’t Know Best: Denial of Mothers’ Reality When Parenting a Child with Mental Health Issues." Journal of Child Health Care. 16(4):355-366.
• Clarke, J.N. (2011). “The magazine portrayal of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A post-modern epidemic in a post-trust society.” Health, Risk & Society. 13(7-8): 621-636.
• Clarke, J.N. (2010). “The paradoxical portrayal of the risk of sexually transmitted infections and sexuality in US magazines Glamour and Cosmopolitan 2000-2007.” Health, Risk & Society. 12(6), 561-575.
• Clarke, J.N. (2009). “Women’s work, worry and fear: The portrayal of sexuality and sexual health in US magazines for teenage and middle-aged women 2000-2007.” Culture, Health & Sexuality. 11(4), 415-429.