Dr Andrew Macdonald
Qualitative Research Associate
Profile
Biography
Andrew originally joined the University of York in 2013 as a foundation student in the Physics department. Having passed his foundation, Andrew completed the first year of a Maths degree before transferring to the Sociology department. Having completed his undergraduate degree in Sociology, Andrew remained in York and completed a master’s degree in social research methods. Having won ESRC funding through the White Rose Doctoral Training programme, Andrew began his PhD in 2020, supervised by Richard Tutton and Tom O’Brien again in the Sociology Department at York.
For his PhD, Andrew interviewed young people aged 16 to 24 about Youth Climate Activism. This research enabled better understanding of how young people use climate activism to mitigate increasingly uncertain futures and feelings of climate anxiety. Additionally, Andrew's research findings also challenged the previously narrow understandings of what forms of activism Young people participate in as a response to the climate crisis.
Andrew has now joined the family wellbeing unit in Health Sciences Department as a qualitative research associate. Andrew will work across a range of research projects in the department.
Qualifications
- PhD - Sociology, The University of York)
- MA - Social Research Methods, Research centre for social sciences, the University of York
- BA (Hons) - Sociology, The University of York
Research
Projects
- Mental Health Navigators analysis
- Ready to Relate table of changes for optimising a digital intervention
- Scoping review of measures
- Ready to relate scoping review
Research group(s)
External activities
Memberships
- British Sociological Association
Publications
Full publications list
Power, Politics and Climate Care: Older Women Activists of Extinction Rebellion. [Online]. Available at: https://blogs.york.ac.uk/igdc/2025/04/22/power-politics-and-climate-care-older-women-activists-of-extinction-rebellion/
Gardner, P., Williams, S., & Macdonald, A. (2024). Glued on for the grandkids: The gendered politics of care in the global environmental movement. Sociology Compass, e13148. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13148
Macdonald, A. 2023. ""Climate change protest: a single radical gets more media coverage than thousands of marchers."" The Conversation.
Macdonald, A., 2022. “All these striking kids want is a day off school.”: An examination of the marginalisation of child-led social protest from the 19th Century to the 2019 school strike movement. WRoCAH Journal, 2(6), pp. 38-51