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• School of Social and Political Studies

Social Policy

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Qualifications

• DiplSoz (Humboldt-University Berlin)
• PhD (European University Institute Florence)

Biographical statement

My main research interests lie in the field of European comparative social policy; particularly on childcare, education and work/family reconciliation policies and the changing governance around these issues (especially in Germany and Sweden). Another focus of my research is on the comparative political history of welfare states including attention to the role of social actors such as religious and feminist movements. My work is grounded in a gender-sensitive and critical theory perspective.

I joined Social Policy in September 2005 after having worked as a researcher at the Free University in Berlin on a project investigating the gendering effects of the German alimony system in 2004. From 2000-2004, I attended the doctoral programme in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence with Colin Crouch as my supervisor. I completed my Ph.D. in 2006 with a thesis on the historical development of childcare policies in West Germany and Sweden focusing on the intersections of religious, gender and class conflicts. I have also conducted research on international labour mobility of the skilled unemployed for the Job Centre Berlin (2000), and on ethnic conflict and ethnic identity formation in Germany (1998-1999 at the Humboldt-University Berlin).

In a recent study (2007-2009) I examined Swedish educational reforms since the 1990s as part of an interdisciplinary project based at the University of Warwick on the changing governance of schools in England and Sweden. 

I am a member of RECWOWE, Network of Excellence on 'Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe' under the EU FP6; a member of NORDWEL, Network of Excellence on the 'Nordic Welfare State - Past and Future' under the Nordic Research Council; and an associated researcher with CRFR. In January 2011 I joined the SPA executive committee.

 

Teaching and Supervision

I am Programme Director of the MSc in Comparative Public Policy. I am convening and lecturing in European Social Policy (UG and PG level); Comparative Analysis of Social and Public Policy; Welfare Justice and the State; Governing the Social and Narrative, Text and Discourse. In the past I have also been teaching Research Design and Family Policies in Comparative Perspectives.

Office Hours (semester time only): on maternity leave until March 2012

I am able to offer PhD supervision in a wide range of topics in social and public policy. I would particularly welcome supervision in my research areas on (international and comparative) social care, education and work/family reconciliation policies, and on social policy governance and welfare reform politics.

Current PhD students

Amadu Khan: Asylum seekers, citizenship and the media (ESRC funded).

Jannis Johann: Cultural policy as social policy: a cross-national analysis of Germany and the United Kingdom (funded by the Anglo-German Foundation).

Hannah Zagel: The experience of single motherhood, social policy and women’s career trajectories in Germany and the UK (University of Edinburgh and DAAD funded).

Marc Grau i Grau: The Benefits of Multiple Roles for Working Fathers: Evidence from Catalonia.

Catherine-Rose Stock-Rankin: Hiding in plain sight? Reproductions of inequality in long-term care in Scotland (ESRC funded).

Beverley Ferguson: Teenage Mothers in Scotland: experiences, challenges and policy implications.

Caitlin McLean: The role of institutions in women's employment patterns in the UK and the US.

 

Publications

’Deutsch-türkische Identitätskonflikte: Die Debatte zur Visumpflicht für türkische Kinder in der deutschen und türkischen Presse’ (German-Turkish identity conflicts: the debate about visas for Turkish children in the German and Turkish media), in: Klaus Eder et al. (2004): Die Einhegung des Anderen. Türkische, polnische und russlanddeutsche Einwanderer in Deutschland, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 159-206.

’Child care and feminism in West Germany and Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s’, ESPAnet/JESP Young Researcher Prize Essay, Journal of European Social Policy, 2005, 15 (1), 47-63.

Childcare Politics in the West German and Swedish Welfare States from the 1950s to the 1970s, Doctoral Thesis, European University Institute, Florence, 2006.

‘When a family is not a ’family’: the value of confusion in cross-cultural research’, in: Jamieson, L., Simpson, R. and Lewis, R. (Eds) (2010): Researching Families and Relationships: Reflections on Process, Palgrave Studies in Family & Intimate Life, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

’Towards the Marketisation of Early Childhood Education and Care? Recent Developments in Sweden and the United Kingdom’, Nordic Journal of Social Research, 1 (1), 2011.

with C. Crouch: ’School governance and the politics of central-local relations in England and Sweden’ (under review).

’Why Young Children in Sweden Attend Day Care While in West Germany They Don't. Lessons from History’, Research Briefing, CRFR, University of Edinburgh (forthcoming).

’Childcare Politics in West Germany and Sweden since WWII: Historical Cleavages, Social Compromises, and Policy Outcomes’, SPS Working Paper Series, EUI, Florence (forthcoming).

Book Reviews

Review of Christine Kuller: Familienpolitik im föderativen Sozialstaat. Die Formierung eines Politikfeldes in der Bundesrepublik 1949 – 1975 (family policy in the federal welfare state – the formation of a new policy field in the FRG, 1949-1975), , Munich 2004. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 09.06.2005, <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2005-2-175>.

Review of Kimberley J. Morgan: Working Mothers and the Welfare State. Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States, Stanford CA, 2006: in Journal of European Social Policy (2008).

Review of Åsa Lundqvist: Familjen i den svenska modellen, 2007, Nordeuropa Forum (2008).

Research papers and reports

’From the ’Women’s Question’ to ’New Social Risks’: one hundred years of policy discourse on the reconciliation of motherhood and work’, annual ESPAnet conference, Vienna, 20-22 September 2007.

with C. Crouch: ’The Changing Governance of Schools: England and Sweden in Comparison’, Final research report, Centre for British Teaching/Warwick Governance of Schools project, 2008.

‘Towards The Marketisation of Childcare? A Comparison of Recent Childcare Reforms in Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Portugal’, unpubl. RECWOWE report, WP02: Care Group, task 2: Tensions related to care work in European welfare states, EU FP6 RECWOWE network, 2009.

Explaining Diversity of Childcare Provision in Europe: Political Tensions, Political Alliances and Social Cleavages’; RECWOWE report, WP02, task 2: Tensions related to care work in European welfare states, EU FP6 RECWOWE network, 2009.

’Vem skall ta hand om barnen? En komparation av barnomsorgs- och foerskolepolitik i Sverige och Vaesttyskland, 1945-1975’, 2010 – prepared for book project ’Foerskolans Aktoerer’.

’Religion and the Social Service State in Sweden’, NordWel workshop’Religion and the Nordic welfare state’, 3. September 2010, Jyvaeskylae.

’A child-centred investment strategy: lessons from Sweden’, The Child’s Curriculum conference, 11. September 2010, Edinburgh.

’Childcare politics beyond Left and Right: religion, class and gender and the shaping of new policy agendas’ , prepared for the book project The Politics of the New Welfare State (editors G. Bonoli and D. Natali), 2011.