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 as a lecturer in 2008, after a previous career in higher education administration. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2013.

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 teach modules on research methods and the history and sociology of education and supervise undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Research

Overview

My broad interests are in the sociology of education (especially higher education), social stratification and social mobility. My current research focus is access to postgraduate study, focussing on 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.

Projects

My recent work has included:

• a report on transition to higher degrees in the UK for the Higher Education Academy (with Gillian Hampden-Thompson);
• a British Academy-funded interview study of motivations for access to doctoral programmes;
• programme analysis of HEFCE's Postgraduate Support Scheme;
• a major project on widening access to postgraduate study in six universities (with Gillian Hampden-Thompson and Sally Hancock);
• research on the concept of 'independence' in relation to postgraduate funding (with Ann Berrington and Adriana Duta)
• analysis of university data from the Great British Class Survey (with Mike Savage and colleagues associated with the Great British Class Survey)

Research group(s)

• Centre for Research on Education and Social Justice

Grants

2016 HEFCE (£25,979) Evaluation of the Postgraduate Support Scheme 2015/16 (with Sally Hancock)

2015 HEFCE (£43,284) Investigating an age-threshold for independence at postgraduate level (with Ann Berrington and Adriana Duta, University of Southampton)

2014 - 2015 ESRC and HEFCE (£98,916) Postgraduate Support Scheme Analysis Project.

2014 - 2015 Higher Education Funding Council for England - Principal Investigator for data-led element of the Postgraduate Support Scheme project 'Widening Access to Postgraduate Study and the Professions' (led by University of Sheffield and involving the Universities of Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Warwick and York). Total funding for the project: £2.9M

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, Newcastle 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

 I currently supervise six PhD students:

• Tina Baker - the effects of recent government policy on Further Education students' employability in England
• Caroline Casey - Transitions to becoming a legal professional in a climate of widening participation
• Maria Ana Chavana Villalobos (CONACYT funded) - drop-out and retention in public higher education in Mexico
• Jenn Chubb - the research impact agenda and academics' views on public duty
• Agata Lambrechts (ESRC funded) - higher education for refugees and asylum seekers in England and Poland
• Joyce Vuban (Commonwealth Scholar) - policy borrowing in public higher education in Cameroon

I have supervised the following successfully completed PhD theses:

• Emma Howes - Key stakeholders and their perceptions of the current position and viability of independent prep schools (2014)
• Ioanna Katsikopoulou - Finding one's place in life: exploring the relation between upper seocndary vocational education and social cohesion in times of economic crisis. The cases of Greece and England.

External activities

Memberships

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

I am a member of the UK Council for Graduate Education's working group on postgraduate funding and resourcing and was recently a part of Universities UK's Social Mobility Advisory Group Academic Reference Group.

I am a member of the ESRC's Grant Assessment Panel 'D' for the secondary data analysis initiative (open call).

I am a trustee of the University of York Graduate Students' Association.

Consultancy

I have acted as a consultant to the Economic & Social Research Council in various capacities. I advised on staff and student demographics for 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 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. I have also recently completed a report on measuring socio-economic diversity at doctoral level for RCUK; and worked with the Bridge Group on a similar project for the Wellcome Trust.

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 six 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 most recent event was held in April 2014 at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

Editorial duties

Editorial board member, Sociology

Editorial advisory board, British Journal of Sociology of Higher Education

Editorial board member, HE

Invited talks and conferences

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