Dr Kirsty Morrin BA, MA, PHD, SFHEA

Personal Statement

I am a sociologist whose research focuses on social inequalities. I joined the University of Liverpool in 2017, and hold a PhD from the University of Manchester. My expertise spans areas of global and public social policy, international educations, youth and youth activisms, critical social theory, and qualitative methodologies. In my work I explore classed, raced, and gendered inequalities in social (im)mobilities, 'privatised' state educations, entrepreneurship and education, and emerging digital platforms. My contributions are also conceptual, and I develop frameworks based on ‘contradictions’ in order to ‘do’ reflective social research.

At present my research explores global forms of 'public-private' partnership in state education, including the academies programme in England. This builds on an ESRC fellowship examining 'entrepreneurial investments' in public educational institutions. This research will be published in an upcoming monograph, 'Academies, Entrepreneurship, and Inequality: The Politics of Successful Failure', due out in 2024 with Bristol University Press.

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following (but not limited to) areas:
-Sociologies of education
-Inequalities (class, 'race', and gender)
-Youth activisms

Current PhD students:

Incoming (2023- onwards) A class-based analysis of (former) Regular and Reserve UK Armed Forces personnel (ESRC 1+3 candidate)

Laura Smith (2022-present) The Politics of Everyday Peace in the North of Ireland

Joseph Iesue (2022-present) Getting Beyond Chabuduo: Observing achievement and situational perceptions of service-learning to develop pedagogical solutions for improving entrepreneurial education’s prosocial capabilities

Xin Xu (2022-present) Strategy as Space: How do Chinese Double-First Class Universities Balance Competing Institutional Logics in Strategies

Yuan Gao (2021- present) Entrepreneurship Education and the Fear of Failure

I am co-chair of the department’s Publics and Practices research cluster, and the School of Law and Social Justice Admissions and Widening Participation Lead. I can be contacted for issues related to these roles.

Prizes or Honours

• Lecturer of the Year nomination (University of Liverpool, 2022)
• Learning and Teaching Award nomination (University of Liverpool, 2021)
• President's Doctoral Scholar (University of Manchester, 2017)
• Best Undergraduate dissertation Newcastle University (Newcastle University, 2010)

Funded Fellowships