Researching Social Change

Convenor of the Strategic Research Program: 'Education, Equity and Social Identities' Member of Melbourne Educational Research Institute (MERI) Member of MGSE Equal Opportunity in Education Advisory Committee My research interests lie in interdisciplinary and socio-cultural studies of education, identity, equity/inequality and social change. My research projects and publications encompass theoretical and empirical studies of gender and youth, history and sociology of schooling, curriculum and subjectivity, equity and difference, and feminism and educational reform. I have recently completed a major qualitative longitudinal study of secondary school students and a cross-generational study of culturally marginalised young women. I am currently working on an international comparative study of disenfranchised urban youth and a book on methodologies for researching social, historical and biographical change. I am also beginning a new study on the cultural history of adolescence in Australia, 1930s-1970s Rachel Thomson is Professor of Social Resaerch in the School of Health and Social Welfare. Rachel has been involved in a major longitudinal qualitative study of young people transitions to adulthood, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council since 1996 through the Children 5-16 and the Young People, Citizenship and Social Change programmes. The study is currently being archived with the support of a grant from the ESRC, and will be made available for secondary analysis (see www.lsbu.ac.uk/inventingadulthoods). Her research interests focus on gender identities, social change, sexuality, values, transitions and popular culture.

Introduction: Researching Change and Continuity PART ONE: REMEMBERING Memory-Work Oral and Life History PART TWO: BEING WITH Qualitative Longitudinal Research Ethnography PART THREE: INHERITING Generation Revisiting Time, Emotions and Research Practice Conclusion

This book will undobutedly be a key reference work in the fast growing area of qualitative analyses of social change - International Journal of Social Research Methodology This is a scholarly and thoughtful book. It is clearly written and accessible with useful summaries of the main points at each chapter end...It provides a valuable resource for qualitative social researchers and students, being packed with references and further resources across a range of research traditions Social Research Association News The book has broad appeal to anyone interested in researching social change, at whatever stage they are at in their career. It provides not only a useful introduction to a range of methods but also helps the researcher to consider their positioning within their own project. The authors write enthusiastically about research and celebrate the fact that it should be a collaborative process, two important concepts for any qualitative researcher to remember Qualitative Research