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The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T +44 (0)1227 764000
Social Work MPhil, PhD
This is a research programme within the Social and Public Policy subject area.
Outline
Within the School, there is a breadth and depth of expertise and we can offer high-quality supervision across a wide range of social and public policy areas. There are further details on the research activities and publications of individual members of staff and the School's research units on the website. In addition to regular meetings with individual supervisors, all research students take a research training programme (see Methods of Social Research for details).
Key facts
- Subject area: Social and Public Policy
- Location: Canterbury
- School: Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
- Duration: MPhil two years full-time or three years part-time, PhD registration three to four years full-time or five to six years part-time.
- Start: At any time but preferably in September.
- Fees and funding: More info
- Entry requirements: A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area, and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service. Please also check our general entry requirements (including English language requirements).
Research units and areas
The School and its Social Policy component have several research units which act as a focus for postgraduate students working within those areas. Other research interests within the School have been grouped under certain headings for guidance. However, there is a degree of overlap between groups and your research project does not have to fall neatly within any one of them.
Centre for Health Services Studies
The Centre for Health Services Studies has a strong record in attracting research grants from the National Institute for Health Research, European Union Framework Programme, ESRC, Department of Health, as well as local health authorities and trusts. It is a designated NIHR Research Design Support Service. Particular areas of expertise include pragmatic trials, risk assessment and management, care of vulnerable adults including older people, and public health.
Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements
The Centre was established in 1992 in order to consolidate Kent's leading position in the study in Britain of social and political movements. The Centre is actively involved in international networks of social movement researchers through its participation in the Erasmus network on ‘Social movements, conflict and political action' and through its members' activity in the relevant research committees of the International Sociological Association, the European Sociological Association, and the European Consortium for Political Research.
Civil Society and the Third Sector, and the Centre for the Study of Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice (CSPHSJ)
The School has a strong and growing focus on the meanings, behaviours, resources and roles of civil society. Our interests in these areas focus on civil society and NGOs at both national and international levels: we analyse its contributions across a variety of fields, including environmental action, philanthropy, international development and social welfare; we engage with both contemporary and historic dimensions of key issues; and we deploy a range of disciplinary and methodological tools drawing on researchers' backgrounds in sociology, social policy and policy analysis.
Dedicated to an understanding of the social processes and cultural experiences by which people acquire moral dispositions to care for others, the CSPHSJ offers a focal point for much of this work. Research is conducted into the ways in which our capacity for fellow feeling is socially cultivated, corporately structured, politically mediated and economically expressed. The School is also linked to the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC), collaborating with the University of Birmingham on third sector theory and policy analysis.
Cross-national and European social policy
Using the framework of studying different welfare regimes, academic staff research a wide range of topics, while postgraduate students conduct research projects in every part of the world. Many of these projects involve overseas students making comparative studies involving their own country and European or UK services. The work of academic staff has resulted in a wide range of policy research related to Europe. Recent cross-national work has included projects examining home care services for older people, formal and informal social care systems, institutional change and the future of welfare reform, industrial relations, housing and community activism. Other interests include globalisation and welfare, and subsidiarity and convergence. Current or recent thesis topics include: democratisation and social policy in Korea; youth homelessness in Greece and the UK.
Health, Social Care and Health Studies
Present studies cover a range of issues within the fields of health services, social work and health policy. Particular interests include health care organisation and policy; risk assessment and management; primary care; public and user views of health care; health inequalities; occupational therapy; carework in health and social care; adoption; foster care; adult attachment theory; mental health; child protection; body work; psychoanalysis; race, ethnicity and health. Current or recent thesis topics include: women's health in Uzbekistan; improving men's health: the role of healthy living centres; women, the body and madness. This group hosts the national co-ordinator of the Research Development Initiative in Social Work.
Kent Crime and Justice Centre
KCJC is a collaboration of senior researchers at the University of Kent, based in the School, the Personal Social Services Research Unit and Kent Law School. It works in partnership with Kent Youth Offending Service and other criminal justice and non-governmental organisations. The core members have a multidisciplinary background, which includes sociology, economics, law and statistics, and expertise in sophisticated quantitative techniques, economic modelling and qualitative methods.
Migration and Social Care
The School has established a multidisciplinary research group on migration and social care. The work has national and international dimensions. In the past, members of the Group have carried out research on the human rights implications of policies relating to refugees and asylum seekers; research on cross-border marriage migration; the health and social care needs of immigration detainees; and the experiences of interpreters working in health and social care services. They have also undertaken European Erasmus-funded work developing a curriculum on the health and social care of migrants to be used in universities across Europe; contributed to the EU-funded COST Action on Health and Social Care of Migrants, a knowledge transfer hub for the development of good practice in asylum reception in Europe; undertaken a tracking exercise exploring the interface between refugees and social care agencies; and contributed to a European Commission-funded study of the mental health and social care of refugees in four EC countries.
The research group has close links with leading NGOs and intergovernmental organisations in the refugee field and excellent links with partner institutions in Europe, Canada, the US and Australia.
Personal Social Services Research Unit
The PSSRU is the largest social services research unit in the UK, and operates at three sites: the University of Kent, the London School of Economics and the University of Manchester. Facilities include the Griffiths Library of Community Care, a reference library of more than 10,000 books, journals and other literature linked to the Unit's field of study. Research focuses on needs, resources and outcomes in health and social care: major concerns are resourcing, equity and efficiency from the perspective of users, agencies and others. The Unit has developed a distinctive analytical framework called the ‘production of welfare approach' to illuminate this research.
Race, Ethnicity and Religion
Though socially and discursively constructed, ‘race' continues to be a key basis of social division and identification in British society, across Europe, and globally. Not only do many disparate ethnic minority groups continue to identify along ethnic, racial and religious lines, but ethnicity and race continue to shape a variety of outcomes, such as employment, educational attainment and senses of ‘belonging'. In this sense, ‘race' and the recognition of difference continues to matter and is a key element in the School's research interests.
Risk, ‘Risk Society’, and Risk Management
The critical analysis of risk and perceptions of risk have become central issues in the sociology of the ‘risk society' and this is an important focus of activity in the School. Staff research includes work on health risks and their management, the implications of attitudes and behaviour concerning risk for the welfare state, the development of a culture of risk and anxiety, moral panics, risk and crime, risk and the life course, suffering and the perceptions of new communications technology.
Social and Public Policy, Sociology and the Body
Issues concerned with the body and embodiment have become core to the social sciences over the last 25 years, and the interests of this Group are dedicated to advancing this interdisciplinary field. Present and recent projects undertaken by Group members have revolved around the development of corporeal realism; the sociology of suffering; the body in community care; the body in health and social care; clothing, the body and ageing; and the study of body pedagogics, as a new approach to the study of culture and society. The Group hosts the co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Study Group Ageing, the Body and Society.
Tizard Centre
The Tizard Centre is recognised as leading the field in deinstitutionalisation and community living, challenging behaviour, quality of staff support, sexuality and autism, and has had a significant impact on national policies in these areas. We are committed to addressing issues arising from social inequality
The centre runs an annual seminar series where staff or guest lecturers present the results of research or highlight recent developments in the field of social care. The Tizard Annual Lecture invites public figures or distinguished academics to discuss topics that could interest a wider audience. The Centre also publishes the Tizard Learning Disability Review (in conjunction with Emerald Publishing) to provide a source of up-to-date information for professionals and carers.
The Tizard Centre provides consultancy to organisations in the statutory and independent sectors both nationally and internationally in diversified areas such as service assessment, person-centred approaches, active support and adult protection. The Centre also teaches a range of short courses, often in conjunction with other organisations.
Work, employment and economic life
Interest in the issues surrounding work stretches across SSPSSR and current projects focus on work identity and meaning; work/life balance; age, generation and employment; visual representation of work; deindustrialisation; organisational sociology; gender, ethnicity and class at work; historiography of work sociology; moral economy; workplace ethnography and oral histories.
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|Key facts
- Subject area: Social and Public Policy
- Location: Canterbury
- School: Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
- Duration: MPhil two years full-time or three years part-time, PhD registration three to four years full-time or five to six years part-time.
- Start: At any time but preferably in September.
- Fees and funding: More info
- Entry requirements: A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area, and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service. Please also check our general entry requirements (including English language requirements).
Staff research
Full details of staff research interests can be found on our website.
Professor Mike Calnan: Professor of Medical Sociology
Diffusion and innovation in health care and technology; trust and health care; dignity and the provision of health and social care for older people. Recent publications include: Trust Matters in Health Care (co-author, 2008); The New Sociology of the Health Service (co-ed, 2009); Trusting on the Edge, Managing Uncertainty and Vulnerability in the Midst of Serious Mental Health Problems (co-author, 2012).
Professor Frank Furedi: Professor of Sociology
The different manifestations of contemporary risk consciousness; the relationship between the diminishing of cultural authority and society's capacity to manage risk and change; the sociology of rumour and dissident knowledge; sociology of fear and terrorism. Recent publications include: Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating (2010); From Two Cultures to No Culture: CP Snow's Two Lectures Lecture Fifty Years On (co-author, 2011); On Tolerance: The Life Style Wars: a Defence of Moral Independence (2011); On Tolerance: Continuum (2011); Sex Unsexed (forthcoming).
Professor Chris Hale: Professor of Criminology; Director, Kent Crime and Justice Centre; Head of School
Criminological research (the application of econometric techniques to various topics including the relationship of both crime and punishment to social and economic change and to the study of fear of crime). Recent publications include: Criminology (co-ed, 2009).
Professor Keith Hayward: Professor of Criminology
Criminological theory (in particular, the relationship between consumer culture and crime); the various ways in which cultural dynamics intertwine with the practices of crime and crime control within contemporary society; cultural criminology. Recent publications include: Cultural Criminology: An Invitation (co-author, 2008); Criminology 2nd ed (co-ed, 2009); Fifty Key Thinkers in Criminology (co-ed, 2009); Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the Image (co-ed, 2010); Cultural Criminology (co-ed, 2011).
Professor Phil Hubbard: Professor of Urban Studies; Director of Research (Medway)
The relationship between sexuality and space, with particular attention being paid to the regulation of commercial sex in the city; urban social theory; nightlife and urban consumption practices; the impact of planning and urban regeneration on different social groups. Recent publications include: Cities and Sexualities (2011); Key Thinkers on Space and Place (co-ed, 2011).
Professor Roger Matthews: Professor of Criminology
Policing; drugs policy; prostitution; critical criminology. Recent publications include: Assessing The Use and Impact of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (co-author, 2007); Prostitution Politics and Policy (2008); Doing Time: An Introduction to the Sociology of Imprisonment (2009).
Professor Ann Netten: Professor of Social Welfare
Economics of health and social care; costing services, informal care and regulation; care homes for older people; measuring outcomes of social care; economic evaluation of criminal justice.
Professor Chris Rootes: Professor of Environmental Politics and Political Sociology
Environmental protest, environmental movements, the interactions between environmental campaigners and industry, government and governmental agencies; cross-nationally comparative research on protest, social movements and political participation; the formation and implementation of environmental policy, particularly in respect of climate change. Recent publications include: Environmental Protest in Western Europe (2007); Acting Locally: Local Environmental Mobilizations and Campaigns (2008); Environmental Movements and Waste Infrastructure (co-author, 2010).
Professor David Shemmings: Professor of Social Work
Adult attachment theory; safeguarding children and child protection; contemporary quantitative research methods. Recent publications include: Developing Research Based Social Work Practice (co-author, 2010); Understanding Disorganized Attachment: Theory and Practice for Working with Children and Adults (co-author, 2011); Child Abuse: An evidence base for confident practice (co-author, 2012).
Professor Miri Song: Professor of Sociology
Ethnic identity; race; racism; immigrant adaptation; ‘mixed race'. Recent publications include: International Perspetives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing (co-ed, 2012); Mixed Race Identities (co-ed, forthcoming).
Professor Tim Strangleman: Professor of Sociology
Work identity and meaning; nostalgia; heritage; industrial decline; masculinity and age; historical sociology; oral histories; life histories; visual methods and approaches. Recent publications include: Work and Society: Sociological Approaches, Themes and Methods (co-author, 2008).
Professor Alex Stevens: Professor in Criminal Justice
The politics and practice of criminal justice, with a specific emphasis on national and international drug policy, youth justice, gangs, organised crime, probation practice and the use of evidence in policymaking. Recent publications include: Crossing Frontiers: International Developments in the Treatment of Drug Dependence (2008); Drugs, Crime and Public Health: The Political Economy of Drug Policy (2011).
Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby: Professor of Social Policy
Austerity and the impact of the financial crisis; comparative cross-national work on European social policy; theoretical developments in social policy; managing social risk. Recent publications include: Political Philosophy and Social Welfare (co-ed 2009); Reframing Social Citizenship (2010); New Paradigms in Public Policy (2012).
Professor Julia Twigg: Professor of Social Policy and Sociology
The body, and temporal and spatial ordering; age and ageing; disability; medicine and health care; food, diet and health; home care; public and private space; carework and the care workforce; the sociology of food. Recent publications include: Body Work in Health and Social Care (co-author 2011); Fashion and Age: Dress, the Body and Later Life (2012); Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology (co-author, forthcoming).
Professor Sarah Vickerstaff: Professor of Work and Employment
The relationship between paid work and the life course; the employability of older workers; the apprentice model of vocational training and intermediate skills acquisition and the transition from school to work. Recent publications include: The Future for Older Workers: New Perspectives (co-ed, 2009); Social Policy (co-ed, 2011); Work, Health and Wellbeing: The Challenges of Managing Health at Work (co-ed, 2011).
Dr Adam Burgess: Reader in Sociology
Contemporary understanding of risk in Western societies; the impact of health risks and neuroses upon individuals and society; the spread of generic risk assessment and management to every walk of professional life; precaution and the study of rumours and urban legends. Recent publications include: Study of the Origins and Diffusion of Mobile Phone Fears and Anti-EMF Campaigns (2010).
Dr Derek Kirton: Reader in Social Policy and Social Work
Child welfare policy and practice, and especially the areas of adoption and foster care; remuneration for foster carers; the later life experiences of people growing up in the care system. Recent publications include: A Childhood on Paper: Accessing the Child-care Files of Former Looked After Children in the UK (co-author, 2007); Child Social Work Policy and Practice (2009).
Dr Ellie Lee: Reader in Social Policy
Health policy, in particular reproductive health and parent-child relations; contraception; abortion; assisted conception; ‘designer babies'; maternal mental health; infant feeding.
Dr Charles Watters: Reader in Mental Health
Migration, health and social care; refugee children; educational programmes for refugees; mental health and social care services for migrants in Europe; migration and development; socio-political contexts of care; identity and policies of integration; migration and social capital; internally displaced people. Recent publications include: Refugee Children: Towards the Next Horizon (2007).
Dr Jeremy Kendall: Senior Lecturer in Social Policy
The voluntary sector in the UK; the welfare mix, particularly the motivations and behaviours of providers of care for older people in the UK; British social policy in general; the European dimension of public policy, particularly social policy, towards organised civil society. Recent publications include: Third Sector Policy at the Crossroads: An International Policy Analyses (2007); Handbook on Third Sector Policy in Europe: Multi-level Processes and Organised Civil Society (2009); Constituting the Third Sector: processes of decontestation and contention under the New Labour governments in England (co-author, 2011); Voluntary Welfare The Student's Companion to Social Policy (2012); The Voluntary and Community Sector Social Policy (2012).
Dr Anne Logan: Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice Studies
History of feminism; history of criminal justice; gender, voluntary work and professionalism. Recent publications include: Feminism and Criminal Justice: A Historical Perspective (2008).
Dr Dawn Lyon: Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Sociology of work; gender; embodiment; visual and sensory sociology.
Dr Balihar Sanghera: Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Ethics, moral economy and sentiments; political economy; philanthropy; post-soviet Kyrgyzstan. Recent publications include: Theorising Social Change In Post-Soviet Countries; Critical Approaches (co-ed 2007).
Dr Jo Warner: Senior Lecturer in Social Work
Risk; mental health; social work; documentary analysis; gender.
Dr Ben Baumberg: Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
Disability, the nature of work and the benefits system; the relationship of evidence, policy and critique; attitudes to tax/benefits; theorising inequality; alcohol (and other addictions) policy, especially pleasure and corporate social responsibility.
Dr Kate Bradley: Lecturer in Social History and Social Policy
History of social policy; charities; youth crime, justice and welfare. Recent publications include: Poverty, Philanthropy and the State: Charities and the Working Classes in London 1918-1979 (2009).
Dr Heejung Chung: Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
Welfare state and labour markets; gender; work-life balance and work-family conflict; labour market flexibility; working-time flexibility; employment insecurity.
Dr Jennifer Fleetwood: Lecturer in Criminology
Women in the international drug trade, feminist theory and sociological perspectives on gender; criminological theories about gender and offending; globalisation and crime; organised crime; critical criminology and cultural criminology.
Dr Jonathan Ilan: Lecturer in Criminology
Ethnography; youth crime, justice and policing; urban sociology and cultural criminology.
Dr Axel Klein: Lecturer in the Study of Addictive Behaviour
International drugs trade and policy; the sociology and culture of drug consumption and addiction; drug policy. Recent publications include: The Khat Controversy: Stimulating the Debate on Drugs (co-author, 2007); Drugs and the World (2008).
Dr Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels: Lecturer in Migration Studies
Ethnically privileged migration; citizenship, in particular the post-war evolution of German citizenship policy; the integration of migrants in host societies (including political participation); human trafficking; regional consultative processes; the interaction between formal and substantive citizenship and successful integration.
Dr Lavinia Mitton: Lecturer in Social Policy
Government tax and social security policies, and how they affect people, in particular with respect to the family and income inequality; the history of social policy and long-term change in economic and social conditions. Recent publications include: The Victorian Hospital (2008); Social Policy (co-ed, 2011); The Migration History, Demography and Socio-Economic Position of the Somali Community in Britain (co-author, 2011).
Dr Kate O'Brien: Lecturer in Criminology
Youth and crime; informal economies (particularly drug markets); violence and the night-time economy; gender, crime and social control; the spatial and cultural aspects of crime and social control; ethnographic methods.
Dr Steve Roberts: Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
Youth transitions; work-based learning; experience of non-traditional students in higher education.
Further information:
Key facts
- Subject area: Social and Public Policy
- Location: Canterbury
- School: Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
- Duration: MPhil two years full-time or three years part-time, PhD registration three to four years full-time or five to six years part-time.
- Start: At any time but preferably in September.
- Fees and funding: More info
- Entry requirements: A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area, and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service. Please also check our general entry requirements (including English language requirements).
Contact details
Admissions enquiries
T: +44 (0)1227 827272
E: information@kent.ac.uk
Postgraduate Office of Secretary School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NY, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 823086
F: +44 (0)1227 827005
E: sspssr-pg-admin@kent.ac.uk
Key facts
- Subject area: Social and Public Policy
- Location: Canterbury
- School: Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
- Duration: MPhil two years full-time or three years part-time, PhD registration three to four years full-time or five to six years part-time.
- Start: At any time but preferably in September.
- Fees and funding: More info
- Entry requirements: A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area, and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service. Please also check our general entry requirements (including English language requirements).
How to apply
Before applying, please read our ‘How to apply’ section.
You can then go straight to the online application form by clicking the programme below:
Key facts
- Subject area: Social and Public Policy
- Location: Canterbury
- School: Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR)
- Duration: MPhil two years full-time or three years part-time, PhD registration three to four years full-time or five to six years part-time.
- Start: At any time but preferably in September.
- Fees and funding: More info
- Entry requirements: A good honours degree in the social sciences, an interest in the chosen topic area, and a clear idea of your proposed thesis topic. In the case of research in health services and personal social services, we will also consider candidates with professional qualifications alone and/or relevant experience in the health service. Please also check our general entry requirements (including English language requirements).