Projects

Gendering Activism in Populist Radical Right Parties

A comparative study of women’s and men’s participation in the Northern League (Italy) and the National Front (France). This two-year research project aims to enhance our understanding of current developments in ‘anti-immigration’ politics in contemporary Europe.

Lives Sentenced: The Punishment Careers of Persistent Offenders

This study will investigate how people who are repeatedly punished by the criminal justice sentence interpret and give meaning to their sentences.

Offender Supervision in Europe (COST Action 1106)

The emergence of ‘mass supervision’ of offenders (i.e. in the community) has largely escaped the attention of legal scholars and social scientists more concerned with the ‘mass incarceration’ reflected in prison growth. This Action aims to remedy this by facilitating cooperation between institutions and individuals in different European states who carry out research on offender supervision.

Quality of Engagement in Probation Practice

A multi-method study examining how probation workers understand and construct the meaning of 'quality' in one-to-one supervision: a previously neglected and yet ubiquitous aspect of penal practice.

(Re)Imagining Youth: A Comparative Sociology of Youth Leisure in Scotland and Hong Kong

This project will analyse youth leisure in Scotland and Hong Kong in historical and cross-cultural perspective, drawing on a qualitative, comparative case-study design. Building on landmark sociological research from the 1960s (Jephcott 1967, 1971), the study will explore socio-cultural meanings and changing experiences of youth leisure in two case-study locations, with a particular focus on themes of youth transition, leisure space and 'risky' behaviours. Approximately 150 young people aged 16-24 years will participate in the project and methods utilised will include ethnographic observations, stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions and oral history interviews with young people, visual methods (drawing and photography) and on-line interviews (utilising digital and social media).