Skip to content The Open University

  1. Study at the OU
  2. Research degrees
  3. Research areas
  4. Social Policy and Criminology
  5. Social divisions, social identities and welfare

Social divisions, social identities and welfare

On this page

Research in this area is active and extensive, and is focused both within the Department of Social Policy & Criminology and the interdisciplinary University research centres – the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and the OpenSpace Research Centre. Research students connected to this area are well supported by their supervisory teams and more broadly within the Department and within the research centres.

Within the Department of Social Policy & Criminology research in the social identities area covers a range of interdisciplinary specialisms and areas of expertise relating to social, spatial and temporal divisions, and old and emergent inequalities. These specialisms, reflected in an extensive publication, include research on the following:

  • The making and remaking of social identities and social relations in historical and contemporary welfare contexts.
  • Shifting social identities and policy-making processes and interventions in culturally diverse, multi-ethnic societies and in global contexts.
  • Social relationships, community, place and belonging.
  • Gender and family lives, including parenting and step-parenting; the discursive, material and visual constructions of adult couple relationships; and sexualities.

Other clusters of expertise are focused around research methods innovation and development, social exclusions and poverty and the relationship between social welfare agendas and criminal justice systems. 

Qualifications available:

PhD or MPhil

Fees:

For detailed information on current fees visit Fees and funding.

Entry requirements:

Minimum 2:1 (or equivalent)

Potential research projects

  • Futures of social welfare
  • Multiculture and diversity
  • Global social policy
  • Community and communities
  • Urban spaces and urban policy
  • Geographies of inequality and division
  • Intimacy and gendered identities

Further information

If you have an enquiry specific to this research area please contact:

Name:
Dr Deborah Talbot
Email:
social-policy@open.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0)1908 654534

For general enquiries please contact the Research Degrees Team via the link under ‘Your questions’ on the right of the page.

Links