PhD (School of Social Sciences)

Study support

Induction

All new PhD students can expect an Induction Programme to welcome you to the Unviersity and the Faculty, where you will meet the Director of PG Research and other relevant academic staff. The Faculty Induction also includes a small tour of the campus with current students and an opportunity to meet your supervisors.

The University Induction Programme is currently delivered three times per academic year for Year 1 students. The Faculty and University induction sessions are a requirement for all new PGR students across the University, whether part-time or full-time.

Supervision

Students are allocated a principal supervisor and an associate, with whom you work with throughout your studies. The supervisor(s) has a duty to monitor progress, and to do this in a way that is both searching and supportive. But remember, one of the selection criteria for applicants is an ability to conduct research independently and with a degree of autonomy.

Students are required to attend meetings with their supervisors. These should be held monthly for full-time students less frequent for part-time. Supervision reports must be completed following each meeting by the student/supervisor(s), and sent to the relevant email address. The forms and email can be found on Canvas, our virtual learning environment.

Seminars and events

We organise regular seminars for our PhD students covering a range of subjects including Preparation for Fieldwork. Students are also encouraged to attend Faculty-wide seminars.

You are also encouraged to identify appropriate development opportunities, internally and externally, that will support your journey through your PhD.

Research

Development Studies

Development Studies emphasises the applied and policy-relevant approaches to research, and this is reflected in the consultancy work which staff have undertaken for a number of governments and international organisations.

The Division's areas of research include foreign direct investment, trade liberalisation, the operations of multinational corporations, issues arising from resource-based economies, sustainable livelihoods, human rights and capabilities, social justice, water research, regional development challenges within the UK, accountability mechanisms, poverty, inequality, and democracy.

Under these broad headings, a very considerable variety of doctoral research projects find an accommodating and stimulating intellectual environment.

Peace Studies

The culture of research in Peace Studies is unique and interdisciplinary, involving field-based, theoretical and applied knowledge creation. While issues-based work remains important, theoretical research is no less valued – indeed we regard it as essential to the continuing work of trying to address some of the most vexed and troubling problems of our time.

Key focuses include Disarmament (from small arms and light weapons to WMD and biological arms control); innovative work in Participation Studies including research on social class, ethnicity, gender and human rights; research undertaken within the John and Elnora Ferguson Centre for African Studies (JEFCAS); research on development in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America on democratisation and gender and development; research from the pioneering Centre for Conflict Resolution on conflict analysis, peace-building from below and humanitarian intervention.

Other Regions in Conflict studied include east-central Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and Central America.

Peace Studies is multi-disciplinary and we invite applications from suitably qualified and motivated individuals, whatever their disciplinary background. 

Psychology

The Psychology Division encompasses a range of theoretical and applied researchers.

The Division has a particularly strong focus in the areas of health psychology and behaviour change.

The Applied Health and Social Psychology Group has an increasing national and international reputation receiving Economic and Social Research Council and NHS funding for research. The Group’s work is inclusive of research on gender and health, motherhood, eating behaviour, health behaviours, alcohol and drug misuse, community development and practice, inequalities in health and mental health, neuropsychological disorders, diversity in prisons, identity, creativity, sustainable societies, PTSD research and social media, suicide and social media, online disinhibition, attribution research, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, cognitive ageing research and dementia.

Members of the Bradford Cognition and Brain Group in the Division of Psychology work collaboratively with colleagues from the Faculty of Life Sciences to explore cognitive development and neuropsychological functioning.

Sociology and Criminology

Government deliberation and public debate over social policy has never seemed more topical – and in some particulars, never more urgent.

Our vibrant Social Policy Division engages both the practical and theoretical aspects of contemporary social policy at the international, national and local levels across a wide range of issues.

These include criminal justice studies, policing, hate crime, racism in prisons, human trafficking, youth offending, families, ethnicities and identities, transnational identities, anti-Muslim racism/Islamophobia, ethnicity and religion, gender and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, violence against women, work-life balance in Britain and Europe, individualisation and new families, parenting and partnering, children and young people’s participation, identity and self, contested sexualities, and the economics of personal behaviour.

Social Work and Social Care

In addition to collaborations with Social Policy and Psychology, the Social Work Division undertakes important and timely work on a range of Social care issues.

Social care is a vital social function, and social work is one of the major means by which the state intervenes in personal welfare, yet both are often both underplayed and under-researched.

Research in this area seeks to redress the balance, when the importance of social care is re-emerging as traditional forms of working and living decay while the content and form of social work has changed dramatically over the last decade.

Current research addresses this agenda in the following linked strands

• understanding policy and practice with children and families in the context of gender, culture and life experience, such as family support, mothering and fathering, child welfare policy and practice, adults who were in care as children, men as sexual offenders, child sexual abuse among Asian communities, and adoption and divorce
• religion and spirituality in social work, including the needs, strengths and difficulties that arise in practice from the religious, spiritual and other beliefs both service users and practitioners
• the experiences of service users, including the family carers of dementia sufferers
• the wellbeing and autonomy of older people in care
• the organisation and management of social work, such as interprofessional working
• ‘new managerialism’ in social work, and service organisation