Dr Delyth Edwards

Profile

I am a Sociologist who has dipped in and out of other disciplines over the years to teach and research Sociology across the fields of: Childhood and Youth, Social Policy, Memory, Social Work, Museum Studies and Media and Communication. I joined the School as Lecturer in Inclusion, Childhood and Youth in January 2022.

Prior to this, I was a Lecturer in the Sociology of Childhood and Youth at Liverpool Hope University from 2016. 

Previously, I worked in the School of Museum Studies from 2013-2016, at the University of Leicester as a postdoctoral research associate, where I was employed on the AHRC-funded project called, Understanding Everyday Participation: Articulating Cultural Values. 

I have also worked at the University of South Wales, as a research assistant in the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations.

Outside of but instrumental to informing my research and teaching, I was a board member of the Care Experience Conference and the Every Child Leaving Care Matters campaign.

Responsibilities

• Programme Lead for MA Childhood Studies
• School Lead for Access and Success
• Access to Leeds Tutor

Research interests

My academic interests broadly focus on the Sociology of Everyday Care Experience (growing up in Local Authority care, such as children’s homes, foster care, kinship care and adoption) and this intersects with Childhood and Youth, Participation, Society and Culture, Identity, Class and Memory. My research traverses the fields of social and cultural policy, where I'm interested in how these two areas of policy work together and how they translate each other. As the daughter of someone with Care Experience, I’m also interested in intergenerational inheritance of the Experience and Care Experience as heritage. As I understand it, Care is a very public experience and identity but also a very personal one. I am also interested in how we can make the University and HE more widely a caring place.

Links to ongoing and previous research projects can be found below:

• https://wearebluecabin.com/dfe-projects 
• http://www.everydayparticipation.org/ 

In 2021 and 2022, I participated in a podcast hosted by Blue Cabin CiC on the ethics of storytelling. This podcast series explores Creative Life Story Work. Listen to the podcast “Whose story is it anyway?”.and The Tale of the Libraian and The Researcher

Qualifications

• PhD Sociology, Queens University, Belfast
• MA Sociological Research, University of Essex
• BScEcon Sociology, with Honors, Cardiff University

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Student education

I teach across and lead on several undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Undergraduate

EDUC3040 – Critical Debates in Childhood and Youth

EDUC1203 – Children, Young People, Families and the State

Postgraduate

EDUC5861 – Theorizing Childhood and Youth

EDUC5862 – Research with Children and Young People

EDUC5866 – Child poverty and well-being

EDUC5867 – Children's family and personal relationship

Current postgraduate researchers

• Shichong Li
• Ying Hu
• Sylvia Ikomi
• Megan Stock