Linda McKie

- Name
- Professor Linda McKie FAcSS
- Title
- Dean/Head of School of Social and Political Science, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Edinburgh
- Address
- 6.04 Chrystal Macmillan Building 15a George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
- Telephone
- +44(0) 131 651 1455
- linda.mckie@ed.ac.uk
- Research Interests
- Gender, Women and Work, Evidence Informed Policy, Health and Wellbeing
- URL
- http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/head_of_schools_office_and_subject_academic_support/linda_mckie
Guidance and Feedback Hours
- By appointment with the Administrative Officer, School Office: Gila Holliman; gila.holliman@ed.ac.uk. 0131 651 1710.
Additional Background Info
- Visiting Professor in Gender Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
- Lead on Understanding Care Transitions, in the Advanced Care Research Centre; https://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/advanced-care-research-centre
- Member of the project team for Understanding and reducing the psychosocial impact of Coronavirus social distancing and behavioural changes on families of care home residents in Scotland; http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/about/news/2020/care_home_study_maps_lockdown_impact_on_families
- Member of the Scientific Expert Group, (Re)Searching for Equality in Working Life http://weallfinland.fi/en/weall-research-project Academy of Finland, No. 292883
- Co-investigator Knowledge for Use project team https://www.dur.ac.uk/k4u/, European Research Council
- ORCID; http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3098-3661.
Selected Publications from 2015
Journal papers: academic
Musílek, K, Jamie, K and McKie, L. (2019) Cold winds and warm attachments: Interrogating the personal attachment to neoliberal work and economy, Work, Employment and Society, doi.org/10.1177/0950017019856798
Raw, A. and McKie, L. (2019) Exploring women’s mutuality in confronting care-precarity: ‘Care Accounts’ – A conceptual tool, Sociology, doi.org/10.1177/0038038519856236
Bowlby, S. and McKie, L. (2018) Care and Caring: An Ecological Framework, Area, Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers, doi/epdf/10.1111/area.12511
Books: edited
McKie, L. & Ryan, L. (2016). An End to the Crisis of Empirical Sociology? Trends and Challenges in Social Research. London: Routledge
Books: chapters
McKie, L. and Jyrkinen, M. (2018). Early to Mid-Career Women Managers: Experiences of Gender, Care and Work, in Broadbridge, A. and Fielden, S. (eds.), Impact of Diversity on Career Development. Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar, pp 44-59
Biese, I. & McKie, L. (2015). Opting in: Women in search of well-being, in Connerley, M. & Wu, J.(eds.), in The Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women. New York, USA: Springer. pp 503-516.
Biographical Resume
Linda McKie took up post as Dean/Head of School of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in October 2017. She is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy. Prior to joining Edinburgh, she was Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University for three years and previously Director of Research there for two years.
She graduated from Durham with a Ph.D. is Sociology in 1989 and in the intervening years has held posts at the universities of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian researching and teaching in the sociologies of health and illness, gender and work, and research methods and management.
In 2004 she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and in 2010 appointed a member of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF), Sub-panel 23: Sociology. During 2007 and 2014 she was part of the evaluation panels commissioned by the Greek Government to review research centres in Historical, Mediterranean and Social Sciences.
She was a Senior Visiting Fellow, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki across six years to 2010. In 2015, 2016 and 2017 she chaired the grant recommendation panels in Social Work and Social Policy, Social Sciences and Business Studies, and Sociology, for the Academy of Finland. In 2014 she was a member of the Irish Research Council's Assessment Board for the Research Projects Grant Scheme. Peer review work has also been undertaken for various EU panels (COST, Horizon 2020 and Marie Curie) and the Norwegian Research Council. She has also been an Associate Director at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships from its inception in 2001 to 2016.
Work with the public and third sectors has included two periods of employment in the Civil Service; as a Senior Executive Office in the Inland Revenue and Head of Intelligence at the UK Equal Opportunities Commission. Community and volunteering work has included trusteeships with five charities: British Sociological Association, Community Health UK, Erskine (health and social care for veterans), Evaluation Support Scotland, and the Institute for Rural Health. In 2009 she qualified as a diploma member of the Institute of Fundraising.
Research Interests
1. Gender, Care and Work
Concepts and ethics of care: Work on this theme has led to a number of publications (journal articles, co-authored and edited books) that detail theoretical developments on spatial and temporal frameworks to combining caring and working (Sociology, 36, 4, 897-924). The resulting analytical framework enables to critical exploration of the multi-faceted relationship between care and policies. This conceptual work informed the development of numerous projects, namely, Researching Care in Workplaces (ESRC, 2007-11), Gender Related Family-Work Balance and Well-Being in Food Retail (ESF, 2005-7), and Women Managers in Finland and Scotland (Academy of Finland, 2008-11). Recent papers and debates include the evolution of organisations carescapes (Sociological Research On-line, 14, 4) and careerscapes (Gender, Work and Organization, 20, 2, 184-196). Current research considers Equality in Working Life http://weallfinland.fi/en/weall-research-project Academy of Finland, No. 292883 €7m, a major structural project which runs to 2020.
2. Evidence and Policy Analysis
Evidence Informed Policy: Much of this work is concerned with knowledge sharing, transfer and impact; to ensure sociological work informs the development of policy, practice, education and future research. A new example of this is the grant Knowledge for Use [K4U]: Making the Most of Social Science to Build Better Policies, European Research Council, Cartwright, N., Byrne, D., Clarke, J., Hardie, J., McKie, L., Montuschi, E., Munro, E., Parker, W., Reis, J. and Seckinelgin, H. €2.3m, 2015-2020.