Postgraduate

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Sociology MA, MPhil, PhD

This is a research programme within the Sociology subject area.

Outline

Research in Sociology at Kent covers a range of areas including social and critical theory, social movements, globalisation and everyday life, cities and space, media and technology, class, 'race' and ethnicity, gender, work, visual sociology, the welfare state, risk and society, violence, NGOs and organisations, and social aspects of the body. We offer high-quality supervision across a wide range of areas and we work carefully to match you with a supervisor who suits your interests and ambitions. There are further details on the research activities and publications of individual members of staff and the School's research units on the School's website. In addition to regular meetings with individual supervisors, all research students take part in a research training programme.

Key facts

Research areas

Academic staff at Kent share a number of interests, grouped here for your guidance. However, there is often a degree of overlap between groups and your research project does not have to fall neatly within any one of them. The School also has several research centres that bring together experts in the field, co-ordinate research, organise talks and offer opportunities for postgraduate students to get involved in discussions and research projects.

Globalisation

At Kent, research in this area includes the role of global civil society, critical analyses of terrorism and responses to it, globalisation and everyday life, migration, the role of communication technologies, and the global expansion of capitalism and responses to it in social movements.

Staff

Professor Frank Furedi, Dr Vince Miller, Professor Larry Ray, Professor Chris Rootes, Professor Miri Song.

The Individual and the Social

Within this area, staff have worked on the 'culture of anxiety' and the 'therapy culture', the impact on individual lives and experiences of masculinity, gender, race and ethnicity, parenthood and nationality. Other interests include the social context in which attributions of mental illness are made and managed, the meaning and construction of pain in late modernity, and the sociology of crime and deviance.

Staff

Dr Adam Burgess, Professor Frank Furedi, Dr Jennifer Fleetwood, Dr Ellie Lee, Dr Vince Miller, Professor Janet Sayers, Professor Chris Shilling, Professor Miri Song, Dr Iain Wilkinson.

Risk and Society

The critical analysis of risk and perceptions of risk have become central issues in the sociology of the ‘risk society' and this is a major focus of research 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.

Staff

Dr Adam Burgess, Professor Frank Furedi, Professor Keith Hayward, Professor Peter Taylor- Gooby, Professor Sarah Vickerstaff, Dr Jo Warner, Dr Iain Wilkinson.

Race, Ethnicity and Migration

The School has strong expertise in the area of race and ethnicity, and in the area of migration. Our work includes projects on mixed race, immigrant communities and refugees. Research at Kent has also addressed diasporas, undocumented migrants and the links between marriage and migration.

Staff

Dr Vince Miller, Professor Larry Ray, Professor Miri Song, Dr Charles Watters, Dr Lucy Williams.


The Analysis of Social Movements

Social and political changes have stimulated new forms of political participation and mobilisation, including waves of protest, new social movement organisations focused on old as well as new issues, new political parties, and global social movements. Staff interests include environmental movements, humanitarian NGOs, elite networks, and the 'postmodern' politics of anti-communist movements in Eastern Europe.

Staff

Dr Jeremy Kendall, Professor Chris Pickvance, Professor Larry Ray, Professor Chris Rootes, Dr Iain Wilkinson.

Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice

Staff in this cluster seek to understand the social forces and cultural interests that move people to take moral responsibility for responding to/caring for the needs of others; document and explain the institutional organisation of charitable behaviour and its social impacts; the socio-cultural dynamics of philanthropic behaviour and its effects on society; contemporary humanitarianism and its powers of influence over social policy and political process; and to understand the character of the social ties and cultural values that structure the interrelationships between humanitarian action, charitable endeavour and philanthropic intervention; as well as the bearing of government policies and governmental processes upon the charitable sector and philanthropic activity.

Staff

Dr Beth Breeze, Dr Kate Bradley, Dr Jeremy Kendall, Dr Balihar Sanghera, Dr Iain Wilkinson.

Sociology of the Body

Staff working in this cluster seek to understand the complex relationships between embodied subjects, and the social and cultural forms, relationships, institutions and structures that shape and are shaped by these actors. This includes research on clothing and fashion, the embodiment of age, and the body in health and social care. Thesis topics within this cluster have included female binge drinking, female body builders, tattooing and piercing, and the embodied sociology of private spaces.

Staff

Dr David Boothroyd, Dr Ellie Lee, Professor Chris Shilling, Professor Julia Twigg.

Crime, Control and Culture

Members of the crime, control and culture research cluster at the University of Kent are primarily involved in projects and research-centred activities connected with cultural criminology, for example in the areas of subcultures, drug use and intoxification, the night-time economy, the surveillance society, the photographic representation of crime, young people and crime, and the carnival of crime. In addition, work of a more traditional nature is also being undertaken, for example in the fields of international drug policy, the history of crime and punishment, and violence.

Staff

Dr Kate Bradley, Dr Phil Carney, Dr Caroline Chatwin, Professor Frank Furedi, Professor Chris Hale, Professor Keith Hayward, Dr Derek Kirton, Dr Anne Logan, Professor Ann Netten, Dr Kate O'Brien, Professor Larry Ray.

Sociological Theory and the Culture of Modernity

Staff working in this cluster of interests study issues such as classical social theory, the impact on social theory of the fall of communism, and the theoretical implications of the changing boundaries of social life. This has further entailed work on the integrity of auto/biography as a form of social information and its impact on diverse disciplines of feminist perspectives.

Staff

Dr Clare Birchall, Dr David Boothroyd, Professor Keith Hayward, Dr Vince Miller, Professor Larry Ray, Professor Janet Sayers, Professor Chris Shilling, Dr Iain Wilkinson.

Gender

Research at Kent addresses how gender is constructed and how it operates in a variety of social realms. Some of our recent projects have focused on gender in prisons, on women working as door staff in nightclubs and on how women are addressed in advice on pregnancy. Our research on social policy also includes a focus on gender, examining how men, women and families are affected by legislation and service provision.

Staff

Dr Jennifer Fleetwood, Dr Ellie Lee, Dr Anne Logan, Dr Kate O'Brien, Professor Janet Sayers, Professor Miri Song, Dr Jo Warner.

Media

Staff share a research interest in the social role of the media, how media are used and how they are changing. Research at Kent has included work on the role of the media in constructing social problems and moral panics, media and crime, new media, media and subcultures, and the role of media in representing space and identity.

Staff

Dr Clare Birchall, Dr David Boothroyd, Dr Adam Burgess, Dr Phil Carney, Professor Frank Furedi, Dr Jonathan Ilan, Dr Vince Miller.

Visual Sociology

Staff share an interest in the visual dimension of social life. How is life seen, how are images created, stored and used? In various research projects, we also explore the use of images in innovative forms of research design and in sharing our findings.

Staff

Dr Phil Carney, Dr Dawn Lyon, Dr Vince Miller, Professor Tim Strangleman.

Work, Employment and Economic Life

This cluster represents a long-standing interest within SSPSSR at Kent. Currently, ten members of the School are researching and teaching in this broad field, representing staff in sociology, social policy, criminology and cultural studies. Themes studied include: age, generation and employment; deindustrialisation; gender, ethnicity and class at work; historiography of work sociology; moral economy; organisational sociology; policy effects on formal and informal labour; visual representation of work; work identity and meaning; work/life balance; workplace ethnography and oral histories.

Staff

Faiza Ali, Dr Mark Gilman, Dr Patricia Lewis, Dr Samantha Lynch, Dr Jawad Syed, Professor Dennis Tourish, Professor Katie Truss, Dr Pamela Yeow.

Cross-national and European Social Policy

Cross-national study, both among staff and postgraduate students, is widespread throughout the School and relevant to all groupings. However, some of our research also takes cross-national comparison as its major focus. This includes analysing policy formation and its impact on individuals, families and social groups within different states and within a global context.

Using the framework of 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 comparing their own country and European or UK services. 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, gender and family, globalisation, housing, and community activism.

Staff

Dr Jeremy Kendall, Dr Lavinia Mitton, Professor Chris Pickvance, Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor Sarah Vickerstaff.

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Key facts

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; the sociology of fear. 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; Director, Methods of Social Research MA

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 in Criminology; Director, Criminology MA

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 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 Larry Ray: Professor of Sociology

Sociological theory; postcommunism, social memory and the emergence of new Jewish cultures in Europe; globalisation; race; ethnicity; violence. Recent publications include: Globalization and Everyday Life (2007); Violence and Society (2011).

Professor Chris Rootes: Professor of Environmental Politics and Political Sociology; Director, Political Sociology MA

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 Janet Sayers: Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychology

Psychoanalysis; gender; mental health; Freud; Picasso; British art critic Adrian Stokes. Recent publications include: Freud's Art: Psychoanalysis Retold (2007).

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 Chris Shilling: Professor of Sociology; Director of Graduate Studies (Research)

The body; embodiment; body pedagogics; religion; social, sociological and cultural theory. Recent publications include: Changing Bodies. Habit, Crisis and Creativity (2008).

Professor Miri Song: Professor of Sociology

Ethnic identity; race; racisms; immigrant adaptation; 'mixed race'. Recent publications include: International Perspectives 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 Peter Taylor-Gooby: Professor of Social Policy

Risk; comparative cross-national work on European social policy; theoretical developments in social policy. Recent publications include: Political Philosophy and Social Welfare (co-ed 2009); Reframing Social Citizenship (2010).

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; care work 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; Head of School

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 David Boothroyd: Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies

Cultural theory; cultural metaphysics and European thought (psychoanalysis, phenomenology; libidinal materialism, deconstruction) applied to drugs and drug cultures, everyday life, TV, film and new media and new technologies, ethics and hospitality; cultures of the extreme.

Dr Caroline Chatwin: Senior Lecturer in Criminology

Patterns of illegal drug abuse; drug markets; criminological theory. Recent publications include: Drug Policy Harmonization and the European Union (2011).

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).

Dr Anne Logan: Senior Lecturer

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; migration; visual sociology; gender relations; comparative cultural sociology (especially France and Italy). Recent publications include: Women Migrants from East to West: Gender, Mobility and Belonging in Contemporary Europe (co-ed, 2007); A New Dawn: From Sunset... to Sunrise (2012).

Dr Vince Miller: Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Urban sociology; theories of urban social change and fragmentation; social theory of space; the information society; media and new media; digital culture and in particular social media. Recent publications include: Understanding Digital Culture (2011).

Dr Balihar Sanghera: Senior Lecturer in Sociology; Director of Graduate Studies (Taught); Director, Sociology MA

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 Iain Wilkinson: Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Social theory; sociology of risk; sociology of health; sociology of mass media; the ways people experience and respond to their knowledge of risk, crisis and disaster. Recent publications include: Health, Risk and Vulnerability (2008); Risk, Vulnerability and Everyday Life (2009); A Passion for Society: Essays on Social Suffering (co-ed, forthcoming).

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 Phil Carney: Lecturer in Criminology

Media representations of crime and punishment; photographic theory; contemporary social and cultural theory; poststructuralist philosophy.

Dr Jennifer Fleetwood: Lecturer in Criminology

Gender and crime; drug trafficking; ethnography; narrative; research ethics.

Dr David Garbin: Lecturer in Sociology

Transnational religion; African and South Asian diasporas; migration; globalisation; diasporic processes; popular culture; the politics of identity and ethnicity in urban settings.

Dr Jonathan Ilan: Lecturer in Criminology

Ethnography of crime, youth crime and justice, street culture, disadvantaged communities, class culture, policing, cultural criminology, urban music, media and crime.

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 Lucy Williams: Lecturer in Migration Studies

Social networks and social support systems of refugees, asylum seekers and other minority groups; strategies and tactics of migration, integration, assimilation and identity formation; cross-border marriage migration and family reunification; user-involvement and the management of voluntary organisations. Recent publications include: Global Marriage: Cross-Border Marriage and Marriage Migration (2010).

Dr Joy Zhang: Lecturer in Sociology

Transnational governance of scientific uncertainties; cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitanisation; Chinese-European co-operation; Chinese civil societies; art-science interface. Recent publications include: Cosmopolitanization of Science: Stem Cell Governance in China (2012); Climate Politics in China (forthcoming).

Research centres

The school also has several research centres that bring together experts in the field, co-ordinate research, organise talks and offer opportunities for posstgraduate students to get involved in discussion and research projects:

Centre for Health Services Studies
Centre for the Study of Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice
Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements
Kent Crime and Justice Centre
Migration and Social Care
Personal Social Services Research Unit
Tizard Centre

Further information:

Key facts

Contact details

Admissions Enquiries

Graduate Admissions
Secretary School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, UK
T: +44 (0)1227 827613 / 823086
F: +44 (0)1227 827005
E: sspssr-pr-admin@kent.ac.uk

Key facts

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

Publishing Office - © University of Kent

The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T: +44 (0)1227 764000

Last Updated: 13/09/2011