Age, Generation and Everyday Life

Professor Sara Arber
E: s.arber@surrey.ac.uk
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchgroups/age_generation_and_everyday_life.htm

The research grouping explores contemporary social life and social issues with an emphasis on later life and ageing, childhood, and youth. Innovative work is undertaken on everyday life in respect of food, sleep, popular culture and youth culture, and sexuality, particularly investigating these within the framework of age, generation and the life course. It also engages with questions concerning health, employment and welfare provision in the context of gender and age.

Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) - incorporating the Qualitative Innovations in CAQDAS project (QUIC)

Dr Christina Silver
E: c.silver@surrey.ac.uk
http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk

Now in its 16th year the CAQDAS Networking Project is internationally known for pioneering work on systematic qualitative data analysis techniques, providing practical support and training generations of researchers in the use of qualitative software. CAQDAS hosts QUIC (Qualitative Innovations in CAQDAS), a new ESRC supported node of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. QUIC delivers its ongoing and well-established Training and Capacity Building programme in qualitative software, and explores three new breaking developments. The first concerns qualitative software support for integrating qualitative and quantitative data in mixed method research. The second relates to multi-stream visual data. The third concerns geo-referencing qualitative software to enable users to add a spatial dimension to qualitative data analysis. QUIC explores these three new areas by applying them to the field of environmental risk.

Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender (CRAG)

Susan Venn
E: s.venn@surrey.ac.uk
www.crag.surrey.ac.uk

CRAG is internationally prominent and hosts numerous international visitors. Research within CRAG examines how gender differences in the earlier life course, in terms of paid work, family roles and social relationships, influence the ability of women and men to live fulfilling and socially engaged lives, while coping with ageing and increasing disability. CRAG has completed projects on food and older people, older men’s social worlds and healthy lifestyles, women and pensions, and on the social influences on sleep in children, teenagers, couples, mid to later life women, and is currently leading a New Dynamics of Ageing Collaborative Research Project, SomnIA, on ‘Sleep in Ageing’.

Centre for Research in Social Simulation (CRESS)

Professor Nigel Gilbert
E: n.gilbert@surrey.ac.uk
http://cress.soc.surrey.ac.uk

CRESS is a multidisciplinary centre bringing together social science, computer science and software engineering to use and promote computational modelling in social science research. Our projects are concerned with culture, the emergence of norms, innovation in high technology industrial sectors, scientific networks, the resilience of complex social systems, social networking and internet based communities, the evolution of language, modelling classical political theories, transport and communication, and a variety of other topics. CRESS hosts a node concerned with social simulation, SIMIAN, in the ESRC supported National Research Methods Centre.

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Dr Karen Bullock
E: k.bullock@surrey.ac.uk
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchgroups/criminology_and_criminal_justice.htm

The grouping conducts empirical research on the principal institutions of the criminal justice system, notably the police, the prison and probation services, the voluntary criminal justice sector and the courts. We also explore more theoretically oriented work on the nature of deviance and social control in contemporary society. Members of the Group also participate in the Crime and Security initiative.

Culture, Identity and Communication

Dr Paul Hodkinson
E: p.hodkinson@surrey.ac.uk
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchgroups/culture_identity_and_communication.htm

The focus of the grouping’s research is on contemporary social identities, their expression in socio-cultural forms, and agents and systems of communication in socio-cultural contexts. There is a particular emphasis on ethnicities, culture and identity, marginalised sexual identities, and fan and subcultures. This is complemented by work on the sociology of art and museums, and organisational analysis. The communication strand includes political communication, popular culture and audience studies, and communication and social and political theory. 

Developments in Methodology

Dr Jane Fielding
E: j.fielding@surrey.ac.uk
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchgroups/developments_in_methodology.htm

As a leading centre of expertise in social research methodology, the Department of Sociology’s flagship Research Group focuses on developing methodologies, cutting edge methods and innovation in the application of new research technologies. Current research priorities include work on social simulation; statistical modelling; visual methods; secondary analysis of datasets; GIS techniques, especially in relation to qualitative methods; virtual methods; advanced computationally-supported qualitative methods; and new technologies for social research. There is a special interest in the use of mixed methods, methodological integration and triangulation, and methodological synthesis.

This work is integrated through specialist advanced methodology centres, including CRESS, the Centre for Research on Simulation in the Social Sciences, directed by Professor Nigel Gilbert, and CAQDAS, the Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Networking Project, directed by Professor Nigel Fielding. The Department also hosts two nodes of the ESRC-funded National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM); the SIMIAN Node in collaboration with CRESS, and Qualitative Innovations in CAQDAS “QUIC” Node in collaboration with CAQDAS.

Science, Environment and Technologies

Dr Christine Hine
E: c.hine@surrey.ac.uk
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchgroups/science_environment_and_technologies.htm

The Department of Sociology’s work on science and technology develops sociological frameworks to examine a wide array of contemporary developments, with particular concentrations of effort on contemporary communications media, on the applications of computational technologies such as the Grid and High Performance Computing in the social and natural sciences, sociology of the environment, public understanding of science and social aspects of risk.

Sociology of Sleep

Professor Sara Arber
E: s.arber@surrey.ac.uk
www.sociologyofsleep.surrey.ac.uk

Sociologists at the University of Surrey have pioneered empirical research on the sociology of sleep since 2001. Research includes recently completed studies on Sleep in Ageing Women (EU-funded), on Couples and Sleep (ESRC-funded), and a 4 year EU Marie Curie Research Training Network on ‘The biomedical and sociological effects of sleep restriction’. Current research includes leading a four year multi Research Council funded project on Sleep in Ageing (SomnIA), which involves six disciplines and four universities.