Henrietta O'Connor

• Professor at University of Leicester

The work of largely forgotten sociological researcher Pearl Jephcott is increasingly being recognised for its methodological complexity and innovation, and community-orientated approach. Here we revisit two of Jephcott’s lesser-known works. Yet again both working around issues that attracted great sociological interest in the 1950s and 1960s but we...

Sociological practitioners often face considerable methodological uncertainty when undertaking a quantitative analysis. This methodological uncertainty encompasses both data construction (e.g. defining variables) and analysis (e.g. selecting and specifying a modelling procedure). Methodological uncertainty can lead to results that are fragile and a...

Shortly after leaving Leicester for Scotland Andy Furlong began to wrestle with the complexities of school to work transitions as captured by the 1986 sweep of the British Cohort Study (BCS). His analysis was published as Schooling for Jobs. Although a relatively short text, this book was vitally important as it documented in detail, for the first...

When undertaking applied quantitative analyses of observational social data, practitioners often face problematic levels of methodological uncertainty. This methodological uncertainty encompasses both data construction (e.g. variable definition) and analysis (e.g. selecting modelling frameworks and specifications). It is increasingly recognised tha...

The Youth Training Schemes (YTS) were a major component of the UK government's response to youth unemployment in the 1980s and were an early part of the development of the UK's current neoliberal 'workfare' approach to unemployment. Critiques of the scheme imply its failure to ensure equity among its participants, due to stratification, discriminat...

The 1980’s UK Government-Sponsored Youth Training Schemes (YTS) have been considered foundational in the development of the modern punitive approach to youth unemployment and training. Both the implementation and structural context of the schemes have been subject to sustained sociological critique. Yet, the evaluation of the scheme, especially as...

The social sciences are replete with past research studies, worthy of a ‘second look’ but which have often become lost in the mists of academic time. Once cutting-edge research produced by innovative researchers seemingly passed over in pursuit of the ‘new’. In this introductory paper, we reflect on why valuable studies have come to be disregarded...

Objectives To categorically describe cancer research funding in the UK by gender of primary investigator (PIs). Design Systematic analysis of all open-access data. Methods Data about public and philanthropic cancer research funding awarded to UK institutions between 2000 and 2013 were obtained from several sources. Fold differences were used to c...

In this concluding chapter of our edited volume we consider some of the important ideas about the value of studying paradata, marginalia and fieldnotes that run across the quite diverse contributions to this collection. What knowledge about the craft may be carved out of the interface of disciplinary and methodological approaches and concerns that...

Introduction to edited collection, covering why book is interesting, development of typology of social research 'by-products', analytic potential of 'by-product' materials, and overview of chapters.

In this special anniversary issue of Sociology, we mark 50 volumes of the journal by reflecting on the developing story of sociology as both a disciplinary and intellectual pursuit. In this respect, the collection stands alongside a corpus of anniversary publications marking the contribution of Sociology to the study of key aspects of sociological...

Based on the re-discovery of a lost sociological project led by Norbert Elias at the University of Leicester, this book re-visits the project: The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Norbert Elias's Lost Research makes use of the interview booklets documenting the lives of nearly 900 Leicester school leavers at the time,...

In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of trying to undertake a restudy of The Established and The Outsiders - Return to Winston Parva. We consider the methodological challenges that such a 'return' has raised for us (and potential research funders). These include i) the circumstances surrounding the genesis of the published version of The Es...

Internships are now widely promoted as a valuable means of enhancing graduate employability. However, little is known about student perceptions of internships. Drawing on data from a pre-1992 university, two types of graduate are identified: engagers and disengagers. The engagers valued internship opportunities while the disengagers perceived these...

UK data hold lessons for how to close the gender gap in bioscience grant applications, success and size, argue Paul Boyle and colleagues.

Since 2000, this chapter’s research has been undertaking a detailed re-study of Norbert Elias’s lost Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964) project. Interest in this research began when 850 original interview schedules, dating from the early to mid 1960s, were rediscovered in an attic office. The interview schedu...

Introduction Since 2000 we have been undertaking a detailed restudy of Norbert Elias’s previously lost ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ (1962–4) project. This project was not only important because of its links to Norbert Elias or because it was one of the largest studies of school to work transition at that time (se...

In this paper we argue that for the secondary analysis of qualitative data to be effective, researchers need to subject any accompanying interviewer notes to the secondary analysis process. The secondary analysis of interviewer notes can provide important insight into the research process and the attitudes, experiences, and expectations of those co...

The lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented and explored yet even when these biographical accounts are combined with boarder authoritative accounts of the discipline this ‘standard history’ is by no means a fully complete nor an uncontentious one. There are numerous others who have made, or continue to make, an outstandin...

While the lives and works of many sociologists have now been well documented, numerous sociologists at the ‘coal face’ of social research remain ignored. Consequently, beyond the contributions of those more ‘well-known’ scholars, considerably more needs to be done to examine the history of our discipline and reassess the significant contributions m...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is report on findings from a survey of Vietnamese employers in 2008 highlighting key tends in training and future labour needs. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses data collected from a survey of Vietnamese employers during 2008. The survey was design by the authors and the fieldwork undertaken by repr...

Since 2000, we have been undertaking a restudy of Elias’s ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ project (1962–64). We experienced a number of ethical dilemmas/questions in undertaking the restudy and in this article, we outline these and discuss how we resolved them as the project developed. In doing so, we focus our disc...

This article is based on data gathered in the 1960s, which included information on household composition and family formations. We explore different family formations and structures represented in this data and the meaning attached to issues around a number of 'unusual' family compositions encountered by the researchers at that time. We also examin...

Since 2000 we have been engaged in restudies of transitions projects from the 1960s and 1980s and we have used historic data to problematise past experiences of school to work to question assumptions around complexity and linearity. Yet, in our own analyses, we have perhaps followed too closely the dominant transition discourses, concentrating only...

During the early 1960s, Norbert Elias led a research project on the adjustment of young workers to work situations and adult roles. The data from this project, which consisted of 851 interviews with young people, were recently rediscovered and the participants, now approaching retirement, were re-interviewed as part of a restudy. In this paper we a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the key themes in the area of the impact of demographic change on young workers and older workers in relation to education, skills and employment, as discussed in the papers included in this section. The authors have also drawn upon data from their project “From Young Workers to Older Workers” as a...

Since 2001 we have been engaged in a re‐study of three linked Leicester projects: The Employment of Married Women in a Leicester Factory (1959–1962), The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964) and The Established and the Outsiders (1965). The three projects contain a number of striking overlaps, not least Elias's...

The rapid increase in the rate of female participation in the labour market in the post-war period is a well-documented trend. However, the experiences of mothers balancing paid work and childcare responsibilities have received academic attention only in recent decades. Working class mothers, who have a long history of combining paid work and domes...

This paper was published as Qualitative Research, 2010, 10 (3), pp. 283-298. It is available from http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/10/3/283. Doi: 10.1177/1468794110362875 Metadata only entry Embargoed until June 2011. Full text of this item does not appear in the LRA. In 2000 data from a little known sociological study was ‘re-discovered’, stored in...

In this paper, we explore what happened to the young workers featured in the classic text Young workers: From school to work. In this book, the authors made predictions about the labour market outcomes and careers for the young people in their study, classifying them into three groups: the ‘careerless’, the ‘short‐term careers’ and the ‘extended ca...

Whole issue. Including abstract, tabl.bibl.

In this paper we aim to use the interviewer notes from a lost sociological project to answer two broad, interrelated, questions: i) how was family life documented and represented by the researchers in their interviewer notes and ii) what does analysing interviewer notes in this way add to our understanding of families and households? The answers to...

handbook is the first to provide comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of contemporary and developing Internet and online social research methods, spanning both quantitative and qualitative research applications. The editors have brought together leading names in the field of online research to give a thoroughly up to date, practical coverage, r...

Using previously unanalysed data from Norbert Elias’s lost study of young workers in Leicester —the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (19629. Elias , N. 1962. Notes In Reply To The Staff Notes From 16 October 1962, With A Few Additional Remarks On RB’s Memorandum To The Problem Of Sampling, 22 October 1962, University...

Using previously unanalysed data from a lost study—the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964)—and data from a subsequent restudy, this paper contributes to debates on vocational education by examining three themes. First, the methodological issues raised by undertaking a restudy are discussed. Second, the young w...

Forty years ago, between 1962 and 1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles'. Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias's work to a wider audience. Second,...

This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Social and Cultural Geography, 2006, 7(2), pp.199-220. The definitive version is available from www.informaworld.com, via DOI: 10.1080/14649360600600528. The extension of information and communication technologies is purported to provide great opportunities for women, with the potential for...

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester. Awarded 2006. The rapid increase in the rate of female participation in the labour market in the post-war period is a well-documented trend. However, the experiences of mothers balancing paid work and childcare responsibilities have received academic attention o...

In this paper, we seek to examine the gendered nature of boys’ school to work transitions for a group of young male workers entering employment for the first time in the 1960s. We argue that such an enquiry is important because past studies of transitions have not problematised boys’ school to work transitions in terms of gender. Moreover, where ge...

This paper was published as Working Paper 42 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso. A paper of the same title, which is available at https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/990, was subsequently published as a journal article in Sociology, 2005, 39 (2), p...

This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2005, 30(1), pp. 83-97. The definitive published version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com, via doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2005.00153.x This paper makes a case for cyberspace and geographical space coexisting simultaneously as an in...

It is unusual for researchers in the social sciences to have access to data that has remained largely unanalysed for nearly forty years, yet around two years ago data from a little-known project was ‘rediscovered’ from where it had been archived. Stored in an attic office, it transpired that the data was from the project ‘Adjustment of Young Worker...

It is now widely recognized that the use of the Internet as a source of self-help and support, particularly for health-related matters, is increasing. The recent growth in the number of websites aimed specifically at parents suggests that this group are increasingly accessing the Internet to seek information and advice not only for themselves but a...

The potential of the Internet as a valuable methodological tool for social science research is increasingly being recognised. This paper contributes to the debate surrounding virtual synchronous interviews and the value of online research. Specifically it introduces the use of a software conferencing technique - Hotline Connect - and discusses the...

In the early 1960s researchers at the University of Leicester carried out a unique survey into the school‐to‐work transition experiences of nearly 900 young adults. The survey documented most aspects of the school leavers' lives; however, the majority of the data from this Young Worker Project remained unanalysed and unpublished for nearly 40 years...

This is the authors' final draft of the paper published as Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2004, 28(1), pp.143-152. The definitive version is available at www.informaworld.com, via DOI: 10.1080/0309826042000198710

The potential of the Internet as a valuable methodological research tool is increasingly being recognised by both market researchers and academics. This paper contributes to the debate surrounding virtual synchronous group interviews and the value of online research. Specifically it introduces the use of a software conferencing technique – Hotline...

The transition from school to work is a crucial component in a young person’s transition to adulthood. Recently data have emerged from one of the very first projects on school to work transitions. This research was undertaken in the early 1960s by researchers at the University of Leicester, and led by Norbert Elias. Nearly 900 interview schedules f...

Irish migrant workers still make a significant contribution to the UK labour force, but this contribution is confined to particular occupation and industry groups. This paper begins with a brief review of the literature on Irish workers employment and an argument is developed that the work of Irish-born people in Britain is still both racialised an...

This paper contributes to the emerging debate about the value of on-line research. Drawing on the experience of an Internet-based Cyberparents project, it explores the possibilities and limitations of web-based questionnaire surveys and on-line synchronous interviews. It discusses some of the implications of conducting research in the virtual arena...

This paper was published as Working Paper 39 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso The role and content of interviewer notes in social research has traditionally received little attention. This, in the main, is due to the fact that the interviewer notes...

The potential of the Internet as a valuable methodological tool for social science research is increasingly being recognised. This paper contributes to the debate surrounding virtual synchronous interviews and the value of online research. Specifically it introduces the use of a software conferencing technique - Hotline Connect - and discusses the...

This paper was published as Working Paper 33 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso The school and labour market experiences of young workers are a major concern for both academics and policy makers alike. This concern has generated a great deal of...

This paper was published as Working Paper 25 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso Irish migrant workers still make a significant contribution to the UK labour force, but this contribution is confined to particular occupation and industry groups. T...

Irish women have emigrated in greater numbers than Irish men in most decades since records began. In the nineteenth century they were numerically dominant in the flow to the United States, and in the twentieth century they have usually been the majority in the flow to Britain. Yet Irish women have largely been absent from the vast literature on Iri...

Abstract In this paper we seek to examine the gendered,nature of boys’ school to work transitions for a group of young male,workers,entering employment,for the first time in the 1960s. We argue that such an enquiry is important because past studies of transitions have not problematised boys’ school to work transitions in terms of gender. Moreover,...

This paper was published as Working Paper 36 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso. A paper of the same title, which is available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1363908042000174219, was subsequently published as a journal article in Journal of Educ...

This paper was published as Working Paper 35 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso Forty years ago, in 1962, fieldwork began on the research project ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’. Using archived materials relating...

This paper was published as Working Paper 32 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is also available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso It is now widely recognised that the use of the Internet as a source of health information is increasing. Parents form a high proportion of those using the Internet...