School of Social and Political Science

Background

I am a social researcher interested in how, as academics, we can use our research to meaningfully reveal and tackle social inequalities. I typically draw on collaborative and and arts-informed methods that can help understand people and their lives from their own vantage points. My research interest is broadly concerned with community identity and understanding the social infrastructures that support community belonging, trust and tolerance. Areas of research include community life, social infrastructure and civil society. My work is often based in and around community settings, including family support, youth work and public library services.

I completed my PhD at the University Edinburgh in Social Policy in 2013. I joined the University as lecturer in 2020. Prior to this, I worked as a researcher in urban studies at Heriot Watt University, and was a social housing consultant at DTZ Pieda (Edinburgh). 

Qualifications

PhD, Social Policy, University of Edinburgh

MSc in Childhood Studies, University of Edinburgh

MSc in Housing and Urban Studies, Edinburgh College of Art

BA, Sociology, University of Edinburgh

Current Roles

I am a co-director of the Binks Hub, a new initiative supported by the Binks Trust. Our mission at the Binks is to support a bold network of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and community members committed to investigating how to tackle the issues that matter most to people, driving real-world, positive change.

I am also co-director at the cross-institution and multi-disciplinary consortium, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. The Centre is a unique research network, with an aim to connect policy makers, practitioners and academics in research on families and relationships. I am a co-editor of the journal Scottish Affairs, Scotland’s longest running journal on contemporary political and social issues.

I am a Board member at Stepping Stones (North Edinburgh), a voluntary organisation that provides support services to young parent families and pregnant women living in the North Edinburgh area. I am also a member of Craigmillar Literacy Trust, a charity focused on empowering the community through literacy. 

Current Teaching

Social Inequalities and the Lifecourse; 2nd semester (honours).

Research Skills: Data Collection in the Social Sciences; 1st semester (PG)

I run Advanced Methods Workshops on Participatory Research Methods and Analysing Big Qual. I also contribute to PG courses, including Analysing Qualitative Data.

Research interests and projects

Bridging employability, family support and wellbeing: Building a future for all (2024-2025)- This project explored the innovative employability practices of Fife Gingerbread Family Approach, a service dedicated to supporting families from low-income areas in Fife. 

The Poverty Truth Community (2024-25) (PTC; formerly the first Poverty Truth Commission, launched in Scotland) is a movement for change led by people experiencing poverty. This work centres a collaboration between PTC, the Binks Hub, and the University of Edinburgh Library Service to support the co-production of a digital quilt resource to capture and communicate PTC’s legacy of work. 

‘Working across qualitative longitudinal studies: A feasibility study looking at care and intimacy’. The study examined the possibilities for developing new procedures and extending good practice for working across multiple sets of archived qualitative data. We wanted to know whether it is possible to do ‘big qual’ analysis while retaining all that is distinct about rigorous qualitative research. See here for the study outputs: https://bigqlr.ncrm.ac.uk/

A new page? Libraries, austerity and the shifting boundaries of civil society. Working with libraries, and the neighbourhoods in which they are based, this study explored the everyday social world of the public library, giving particular focus to those groups excluded, less able or disenfranchised from local processes of participation, and for whom the library might offer a source of ‘community’ or inclusion. 

Evaluating the Impact of Bookbug Session and Bags in Scotland. The aim of the study was to examine how, and to what extent, Bookbug impacts on the lives of families in Scotland, and on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of early years professionals. 

Move on Peer mentoring programme evaluation: this project involved an outcome-based evaluation of its pilot peer mentoring programme (which was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation), and its relationship to its wider mentoring services.

Publications

A list of my publications is available here

Topics interested in supervising

I can act as a supervisor or in an informal mentoring role on projects concerning community life and everyday social interactions; civic society; youth transitions, class and inequality; youth work; public libraries; as well as students with interests in particular methodologies, including qualitative policy evaluation; qualitative data analysis; secondary qualitative data; and longitudinal qualitative methods.

• PhD in Social Policy

PhD Students

Helen Berry (Social Policy): Exploring the meanings and value given to research co-production

Madison Bunker (Social Policy): We’re going through changes: Investigating how critical transitions in children’s lives affect children’s social and emotional development from the early years onwards [working title]

Emily Kenway (Social Policy): Vulnerability and exploitation in contemporary Britain 

Minkyung Kwon (School of Education) Gender Perspectives of South Korean Students in Designing Sex Education (completed 2024)

Joshua Anderson-Rose (International Development): Youth in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi: Young people’s views of waiting in a liminal place and liminal life stage. (completed, 2022)