Professor Sarah Irwin

Profile

After completing my BA(hons) Geography at the University of Leeds I worked as a Research Assistant (here at Leeds, then at the University of Oxford). I studied for my PhD at the University of Edinburgh. My PhD was about change in the transition from youth to adulthood and the reshaping of pathways to independence and family formation and led to further research into social demographic change, the life course, generation and gender. My first book ‘Rights of Passage’ (UCL Press) drew on my PhD and was winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. I was then Research Fellow at the University of Essex and Lecturer at York before returning to the University of Leeds in 1994. I have since been centrally involved in a series of large research projects including the ESRC funded Research Group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA), Real Life Methods (part of the National Centre for Research Methods) and ESRC Timescapes. I published Reshaping Social Life with Routledge in 2005 and, with Ann Nilsen, an edited collection: Transitions to Adulthood through Recession. Youth and Inequality in a European Comparative Perspective (also with Routledge) in 2018. I have researched and published widely in areas relating to family and parenting, youth in transition, subjective social inequalities and research methods. I am presently researching lay perceptions of the climate crisis, inequalities and social engagement and some linked research outputs are on the FLaG research pages here, and publications are listed below.

Responsibilities

• Director of FLaG
• Co-Chair UoL Just Transitions Taskforce
• SSP Impact and Engagement Lead

Research interests

My research relates to parenting, educational inequalities, youth transitions and subjective social inequalities. My long standing interest in subjective experiences informs my current research into lay perceptions of climate change. 

My interest in research methods includes qualitative longitudinal research, for example through my work on parenting and social inequalities as well as through ESRC Timescapes (where I directed the Secondary Analysis Project and developed research into methods of qualitative secondary analysis, inequalities and routes to higher education, and issues in gender and work-family conflict). 

I am Director of the Centre for Research on Families, the Life Course and Generations (FLaG).

I am on the University of Leeds Climate Plan Research Review Committee and Co-Chair of the UoL Just Transitions Taskforce

Qualifications

• BA (hons) Geography (University of Leeds)
• PhD (University of Edinburgh)

Professional memberships

• British Sociological Association

Student education

My main teaching interests reflect my research interests. I am convening a new module on Sociology and the Climate Crisis. I also contribute across other modules, teaching on educational inequalities, lay perceptions of inequality, parenting, the life course and research methods. 

I am programme lead for the MSc Inequalities and Social Science and run the Applied Project module which offers a dissertation undertaken in partnership with external organisations (for example in the public, third and FE sectors).

With colleagues and PhD students I run a range of events and workshops through FLaG.

I have extensive MA and PhD supervision and examining experience and welcome PhD applications in my research areas.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Research on Families, The Life Course and Generations

Current postgraduate researchers

• Joy Walker
• Karen Tatham
• Emma Hyde