Profile

Biography

I am a sociologist of education with particular interests in higher education, especially access to postgraduate study; and in social inequalities. I joined the Department in 2008, after a previous career in higher education administration.

I have a first degree in Sociology (Liverpool); Masters degrees in Education (by research) from York and Social Research Methods and Statistics (Manchester); and a PhD in Sociology from Manchester on social class differences in access to postgraduate study.

Departmental roles

I am currently Chair of Board of Studies and programme leader for the BA Sociology and Education. I teach modules on research methods, education and social change and the history and sociology of education and supervise undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Research

Overview

My broad interests are in the sociology of education (particularly higher education), social stratification and social mobility. My current research focus is access to postgraduate study, particularly social class, gender and ethnic inequalities. I use a range of research methods but have a particular interest in analysis of large secondary datasets and the use of administrative and transactional data for research.

I have recently published a report on transition to higher degrees in the UK for the Higher Education Academy (with Gillian Hampden-Thompson) and completed a British Academy-funded interview study of motivations for access to doctoral programmes.

Current projects

Currently I am working on the following projects:

• the relationship between social class and access to postgraduate study, testing theories within the sociology of education
• the influence of motivation, education and family background on the postgraduate decision-making process (British Academy funded, with Adél Pásztor)
• comparative research on gender and access to doctoral study in Europe and beyond (with Prudencia Guttiérez Esteban)
• celebrity and social mobility (with Tom Lock, Lucy Wadsworth and Hannah Whyman)
• institutional pathways and 'sponsored' mobility among UK academic staff

For more details, please see my personal web pages.

Research group(s)

• Centre for Research on Education and Social Justice

Grants

2012 - 2013 Higher Education Academy (£9,864) 'Transition to postgraduate study across the UK: quantifying influential factors across
institutions and countries' (with Gillian Hampden-Thompson)

2011 - 2012 British Academy Small Grant (£7,390) 'Access to doctoral study: a multi-institutional investigation of participation and non-participation at PhD level' (with Adél Pásztor, Northumbria University) (ref. SG101994)

2009 - 2010 NCCPE-ESRC Research Synthesis (£14,985) 'Widening Participation from Undergraduate to Postgraduate Research Degrees' (with Chris Kyriacou)

2009 - 2010 ESRC International Training and Networking Opportunities award (£39,997 F.E.C.) for ‘Comparative educational pathways – an international spring school’ (joint with Gillian Hampden-Thompson and Vanita Sundaram) (ref. RES-810-210-0032)

Supervision

• Tina Baker - the effects of recent government policy on Further Education in England
• Jenn Chubb - the research impact agenda and academics' views on public duty
• Emma Howes - the future of the prep school
• Ioanna Katsikopoulou - vocational education and social cohesion in Greece and England

Publications

Selected publications

Wakeling, P. and Hampden-Thompson, G. (2013) Transition to higher degrees across the UK: An analysis of national, institutional and individual differences. York: Higher Education Academy. 

Wakeling, P. and Jefferies, K. (2012, iFirst) The effect of tuition fees on student mobility: the UK and Ireland as a natural experiment. British Educational Research Journal. DOI:10.1080/01411926.2012.658022.

Wakeling, P. (2010) Inequalities in postgraduate education: a comparative review. In G. Goastellec, ed. Understanding Inequalities in and by Higher Education, (pp. 61 - 74). Rotterdam: Sense.

Wakeling, P. and Kyriacou, C. (2010) Widening Participation from Undergraduate to Postgraduate Research Degrees. NCCPE and ESRC: Swindon.

Wakeling, P. (2010). Is there such a thing as a working class academic? In Y. Taylor, (ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges, (pp. 35 - 52). Farnham:Ashgate.

Wakeling, P. (2009). Are ethnic minorities underrepresented in UK postgraduate study? Higher Education Quarterly, 63(1), 86-111.

Wakeling, P. (2007) White faces, black faces: is British sociology a white discipline? Sociology 41 (5), 945-960.

Wakeling, P. (2005) La noblesse d'état anglaise? Social class and progression to postgraduate study. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 26 (4), 505-522.

External activities

Memberships

• British Sociological Association
• ESRC Peer Review College
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Society for Research into Higher Education

Consultancy

I am a consultant to the Economic & Social Research Council in their international benchmarking reviews of social science research in the UK, covering Politics and International Studies (2006/7), Economics (2007/8), Sociology (2009), Psychology (2010) and Human Geography (2012). I have also completed a study of research impact and potential impact of ESRC-funded research under the theme of social diversity and population dynamics with colleagues in the Centre for Housing Policy.

International Links

I am a founder member of the EducEight Group, a network of scholars interested in the sociology of education from Argentina, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. We have arranged five previous international conferences for junior researchers including an ESRC-funded international spring school on comparative educational pathways which was held in York in April 2010. Our sixth conference was held in Newcastle in July 2012 on the theme of ethnicity and education and our next EU-funded event is planned for summer 2013 at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

Editorial duties

Editorial board member, Sociology

Invited talks and conferences

I regularly give invited talks on the topic of widening participation and access to postgraduate study.