The University of Leeds

Department Member, Sociology and Social Policy

Thesis Title: Participant Perspectives on Participation: An exploration of participation on a housing estate in Leeds

About

My PhD research has focused on understanding community participation from the point of view of non/participants, and provides an analysis of how participation is constrained, enabled and provoked.  I have aimed to engage with participation in a way which begins with people's everyday lives and experiences, and as such I have considered informal participation (informal modes of support and control) as well as engagement with formal organisations.  Further, I have explored the different ways in which people engage socially with others living in their neighbourhood in order to consider the implications of efforts to promote participation on a local scale.  The project is qualitative, and has used a narrative approach to explore the perspectives and understandings of participants.  I have also attempted to draw links between these subjective accounts and the broader socioeconomic context in order to provide an in depth account of some of the key shaping processes involved in producing different kinds of participaton.  In part, this has been achieved through providing an historical account of participation in the case study area, which traces some key changes that illuminate these shaping processes.

Prior to beginning my PhD in Leeds, I gained an MA in Conflict Resolution from the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, after which I went on to work as a Research Associate at the UNESCO Centre, University of Ulster (Coleraine).  At the UNESCO Centre, I carried out desk based research into Human Rights Education (HRE) in postconflict societies, and also contributed to the work of Professor Alan Smith in incorporating HRE into UNESCO's Education for All strategy.  Following this, I worked for two years with Professor Dan Goodley and Dr Tsitsi Chataika on the "Jobs not Charity" project, a social model disability studies research project exploring the employment related experiences of disabled people and the work of organisations of disabled people in supporting their employment opportunities.  This research was carried out in partnership with the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and Breakthrough UK.  Subsequently, I completed an MA in Educational Research at the University of Sheffield.