Research topic:

Education regimes, educational stratification and understandings of meritocracy

Fiona is an ESRC funded doctoral student and an LSE Fellow in the Department of Social Policy. She holds a BA in Political Science from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest and an MSc in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to embarking on her PhD journey, Fiona worked as a Researcher in the Policy Research Centre at NatCen Social Research. By working on policy evaluations involving a diverse range of research methods, she has gained experience in qualitative and mixed- methods work, which has included designing topic guides, conducting depth interviews and focus groups, analysis and report writing.

Fiona’s doctoral thesis explores the mechanisms by which institutional features of different educational systems exacerbate or reduce inequality of opportunity. Her research looks at the extent to which educational systems in the European Union vary in terms of institutional characteristics associated with educational stratification. Fiona employs the concept of education ‘regimes’, taken to reflect constellations of social and institutional characteristics of mid-range durability, to construct typologies of educational systems. Her research broadens the focus of the existing literature on education and welfare regimes by including to the analysis the post-socialist countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Her aim is to advance understanding on how educational institutions fit together to create structures of opportunities and rewards that contribute to creating societal frames of reference for conceptualising merit and legitimising socio-economic differences.

Research key words:
education regimes, stratification, comparative analysis, Europe, mixed methods

Supervisors: Professor Anne West, Dr Sonia Exley