Dr Alexander Hensby

Dr Alexander Hensby is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kent. He is the school’s co-director for Research & Innovation, as well as co-director for the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements.

Alex completed his first degree in sociology at the University of York, followed by an MPhil at the University of Cambridge. Alex taught sociology at Cambridge and Roehampton universities for four years before moving to the University of Edinburgh, where he received his PhD in 2014. Alex joined the University of Kent in 2014, and until 2022 was research lead for the University’s Student Success Team.

Alex’s principal research and teaching interests include social movements, civic engagement, sociological theory, race and ethnicity, and global social change. His most recent book, Race, Capital, and Equity in Higher Education (2024, with Barbara Adewumi) is Open Access and free to read, and explores the sociological factors that contribute to ethnicity degree awarding gaps in UK higher education. Alex is also the author of Participation and Non-Participation in Student Activism (2017), and Theorizing Global Studies (2011, with Darren J. O’Byrne). He is currently co-authoring a fully updated fourth edition of Introducing Social Theory for Polity Press, due in 2026.

Alex has written for, and been interviewed by, a number of national and international news outlets including NBC, BBC, Wired, Times Higher Education, The Conversation, Marianne, Radio FM4 (Austria), and the i Paper.

Alex’s research focuses on the overlapping relationship between social movements, identity, and social justice, with particular interests in the paths and barriers to political participation and educational attainment. He is currently working on two research projects:

• A New Democratic (Dis)Order: Race, Identity, and Political Mobilisation in France and the UK, c.1970-Present (funded by the British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Scheme; PI Emile Chabal, University of Edinburgh)

Identity has become one of the most powerful mobilising forces in contemporary democratic politics. Since the 1970s, social movements based around race, gender, religion, language or sexuality have challenged traditional political structures and undermined the legitimacy of broad-based political parties. By stepping back from the polemic and seeking to historicise identity politics, this project provides the basis for a better understanding of the power of identity in contemporary European politics. It does so by looking at various forms of claims-making by racialised communities in France and the UK, including race-based mobilisation and the opposition to it. The aim is to explore how identity politics has reshaped democracy in two diverse European societies.

• Paths and Barriers to Student Success: Longitudinal Study of Academic Excellence Scholarship Recipients 2019-23 (funded by Student Success, University of Kent; PI Alexander Hensby)

This research project longitudinally traces the educational experiences of 27 Academic Excellence Scholarship (AES) recipients at the University of Kent. The principal aim of the study is to compare the experiences of ‘high potential’ undergraduates from a range of ethnicity, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds. The project identifies the significance of differential cultural and social capital access, motivations and strategies for student success, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Hensby convenes the following modules:

SOCI4118 – Fundamentals of Sociology
SOCI4119 – Sociological Theory: The Classics
SOCI5270 – Contemporary Sociological Theory
SOCI6197 – Protest, Activism & Social Change

Dr Hensby welcomes prospective PhD candidates with interests in any of the following topics: social movements, political participation, student protest, race and higher education. Recent or ongoing PhD students include:

• Georgina Treloar (2019-24) Extinction Rebellion in the frame: An analysis of XR’s nascent mobilisation from the social movement framing perspective.
• Amelia Barnes (2021-) A Participatory Approach to Exploring Women’s Rights Activism in Post-Revolutionary Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Roles:

• Commissioning Editor, Social Movement Studies
• Editorial Board, Sociology

Affiliations and Memberships:

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy
• British Sociological Association
• Political Studies Association
• Memory Studies Association