Department of Social Policy Seminars

Presenter: Dr Fiona Gogescu (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: This study examines how students at the London School of Economics (LSE) perceive the value of their university degree. The research employs mixed methods, combining a survey of second- and third-year undergraduates with follow-up in-depth interviews. The survey captured students’ perceived educational gains, priorities during university, as well as beliefs about factors influencing success at university and in the labour market. Students with different profiles — defined by the goals prioritised and their understanding of success —were selected for in-depth interviews to explore how they negotiated between competing priorities during their time at university. Findings show how, under perceived conditions of social congestion (Brown, 2013), students navigate elite higher education as a site for cultivating multiple forms of graduate capital (Tomlinson, 2017) so as to gain positional advantages over other graduates.

Presenter Bio: Fiona Gogescu is an LSE Fellow in the Department of Social Policy, where she also completed her PhD. Her work explores how inequalities are perpetuated and legitimised within educational systems, and at a wider societal level. Fiona draws on mixed methods approaches to explore the links between institutional configurations of educational systems and individuals’ understandings about merit, opportunities, and privilege. Her work has been published in high-quality journals, such as the Journal of European Social Policy and the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Presenter: Professor Deirdre Howard-Wagner (The Australian National University)
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: This paper traces the transformation of social housing from a universal public good to a residual safety net, adopting a comparative social policy lens to examine Canberra alongside international cases. In the postwar period, public housing in Canberra was integrated into urban planning to support working families and foster social cohesion. Since the 1980s, however, neoliberal reforms have reshaped it into a narrowly targeted system reserved for those deemed to be in greatest need. More recent policy shifts have led to the relocation of low-income households to peripheral suburbs with limited access to services, contributing to growing spatial inequality and rising homelessness. These changes have also resulted in shrinking housing stock, increasingly restrictive eligibility criteria, the stigmatisation of tenants, and the peripheralisation of disadvantage.

Comparative insights highlight that this trajectory is not inevitable. Paris employs planning obligations to embed social housing as a core element of urban life, while Vienna continues to invest in large-scale, mixed-income housing integrated into the city fabric. These models demonstrate how universalist approaches can maintain housing as a collective good, foster social integration, and prevent displacement.

By situating Canberra within both international and Indigenous policy contexts, the analysis shows how the shift from universalism to residual provision is not only a product of neoliberal governance logics but also of deeper state practices of managing populations, disciplining urban space, and legitimising inequality. Residualisation, expressed through relocation, displacement, and the peripheralisation of disadvantage, reflects the intersection of market rationalities, administrative routines, and shifting urban property regimes. At the same time, comparative models in Paris and Vienna demonstrate how alternative policy traditions can sustain social housing as a collective good, offering pathways toward more inclusive and systemic housing futures.

Presenter Bio: Associate Professor Deirdre Howard-Wagner is a sociologist specialising in Indigenous policy, race and whiteness studies, socio-legal studies, and social policy. She currently serves as the Social Policy, Participation, and Inclusion Program Lead, as well as the Research Lead at the POLIS Centre for Social Policy Research. Previously, she was the Director of Research at the Centre for Indigenous Policy Research, both of which are part of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Professor Howard-Wagner has contributed to the understanding of inequality and disadvantage as critical issues in Australian social policy. Her research examines the intersection of disadvantage with structural and social determinants of inequality, focusing on areas such as child protection, family violence, criminal justice, disability, and housing.

Presenter: Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch (III, LSE)
Chair: Dr Tania Burchardt (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: On a theoretical level, the capability approach can be applied on three different ‘levels’: First, as a framework of thought, second, as a critique of other approaches to welfare evaluation, and third as a formula to make interpersonal comparisons of welfare (Robeyns, 2000). For Sen, their order of importance is precisely this ranking.

Arguments about how the capability approach can serve to frame a debated on employment from these perspectives continues to be under-formulated. The literature that conceptualises aspects of employment is often fragmented and directed at specific topics such as collective agency (Bonvin, 2012; Leßmann, 2022) or job quality (e.g. Green, 2025 and Stephens 2023). The job quality literature, in addition, has mostly focused on operationalising interpersonal comparisons of employment conditions, but has not sufficiently engaged with the distributional questions associated with job quality.

This theoretical paper therefore recaps the central tenets of the capability approach as they relate to labour markets. In doing so, it will discuss what the capability approach can contribute to how we think about them in terms of each of the three levels specified by Robeyns (2000). In turn, this discussion then frames whether, how and why the approach is suitable for thinking about the capabilities that employment conditions can generate for individual workers, particularly in terms of their multidimensional nature.

Presenter Bio: Kirsten Sehnbruch is a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Previously, she held positions at the Universidad de Chile and the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on conceptualising and measuring poor-quality employment across different economic contexts. Kirsten's work emphasises the necessity for targeted labour and social policies to support more intensely deprived workers. She also highlights the broader negative impacts of poor-quality employment, such as increased fiscal costs, reduced productivity, and lower social security contributions. She has extensive experience collaborating with governments, international organisations, and NGOs in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Her work is widely published in leading academic journals, including Economic and Policy Analysis, Social Science Research, World Development, Regional Studies, Social Indicators Review, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, and Development and Change. Kirsten holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (BA/MA, MPhil, PhD).

Race Matters Seminar

Presenter: Amina Adebisi Odofin (Ghent University)
Chair: Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: This article examines the historical and spatial continuities of extractivism in the Niger Delta, tracing its transformation from a hub of the transatlantic slave trade and colonial palm oil extraction to a centre of crude oil capitalism. Drawing on Black Geographies, Black Ecologies, and McKittrick’s (2006) concept of demonic grounds, it interrogates how racial and gendered violence are inscribed onto both bodies and landscapes, sustaining a logic of dispossession across time. By mapping sites of slavery, palm oil production, women’s resistance, and contemporary oil pollution, the article reveals how colonial spatial logics persist in shaping both the environment and social life. The Niger Delta has been described as one of the most severe cases of oil pollution globally and the greatest ecological catastrophe on the African continent. Yet, despite being ranked among the top ten oil-exporting regions in the world, the region remains marginal in international energy & environmental discourses. This paradox underscores how its centrality to the global oil economy coexists with a systematic overlooking of its violences, where corporate profit and state revenue are foregrounded while ecological devastation, women’s struggles, and community dispossession are obscured.

Presenter Bio: Amina Adebisi Odofin is a PhD researcher at Ghent University’s Conflict & Development Department and an Affiliate Fellow at King’s College London’s African Leadership Centre. Her research, grounded in Black Ecologies, traces how slavery, palm oil, and crude oil have marked women’s bodies and lands in the Niger Delta as sites of exploitation. By situating the contemporary oil catastrophe that has dominated the region for the past seven decades within a longer historical and colonial continuum, her work reveals the enduring entanglements of extractivism, racial violence, and gendered dispossession, while also foregrounding Afro-feminist practices that resist, disrupt, and reimagine these landscapes.

Presenter: Dr Kevin Zapata-Celestino (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: When we think about bullying in elementary and low secondary schools, we often focus on victims given the emotional toll they endure, the academic disruption they face, and the long-term scars that follow them into adulthood. While victim-centred research has been critical in shaping prevention strategies, there’s a perspective that is too often ignored: that of the aggressors themselves. There is a growing body of research that explores how students themselves understand and explain bullying, but very few explicitly address aggressors’ perspectives. Consequently, there has been an oversimplification that masks the complex social and psychological forces that drive such behaviour. Thus, in a recent qualitative study conducted in Mexico, thirteen former students who had once participated in bullying were interviewed to explore the deep roots of bullying. By delving into their life stories and memories from childhood and adolescence, the study uncovered critical insights into why school bullying and violence occur and are reproduced. What emerged from these conversations was not a portrait of monsters, but of children navigating harsh environments, social pressure, and emotional confusion. The findings challenge some of the myths that revolve around bullies and instead reveal how aggression is often learned, normalised, and rewarded.

Presenter Bio: Kevin is a specialised social science researcher, focused on qualitative methods. He holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He is currently a fellow in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. His interests centre around violence and informal social protection in Mexico and Latin America.

Presenter: Gillian Paull (CASE, LSE)
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: In recent decades, women’s role in formal paid employment has been supported by a variety of policy initiatives around the world. In the UK, women have benefited from greater equality in educational attainment and substantial and rising Government funding to reduce childcare costs. More recently, there has been increasing awareness of later career obstacles due to the menopause and the care needs of elderly relatives. This presentation will review some key evidence on these factors for the UK, covering:

1. The design and impacts of childcare policy.
2. The "U" shape in women's labour market inactivity with respect to family income.
3. The impacts of the menopause on women's work.
4. The impacts of responsibility for elderly parents on women's work.

The review will be used to consider how the different barriers to employment faced by women may interact over the working life. This research is in the initial stage of development and discussion at the seminar will be helpful to contribute additional perspectives and to consider how beneficial it could be to build a dynamic understanding of women’s employment patterns to complement research focused on specific segments such as around family formation.

Presenter Bio: Gillian has a PhD in Economics and an MPA from Princeton University and has previously worked at the IMF, World Bank, Institute for Fiscal Studies and Frontier Economics. Gillian’s research has focused on analysing and evaluating policy relating to early years, childcare, women’s employment and poverty, delivering academic articles as well as a wide range of policy-related reports for DWP, DfE and non-governmental organisations. She has also served as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Committee on Affordable Childcare.

Presenter: Dr Eyob Gebremariam (University of Bristol)
Chair: Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: This paper proposes a decolonial meta-framework to critically examine the role of philanthrocapitalism in Africa’s ecosystem of health research and policy-making. The framework foregrounding coloniality and empire explains how health-related research and policy-making in Africa have continued to reinforce colonial epistemic orientations manifested through structural and institutional settings, as well as policies and practices. The paper then illustrates its arguments by examining how philanthrocapitalism builds upon and consolidates the logics of coloniality and the interests of empire. The four identified areas in which philanthrocapitalism reinforces coloniality and the workings of empire include: the promotion of neo-Malthusian narratives about Africa’s population growth, the normalisation of neoliberal institutions, policies and practices within the health sector, the imposition of vertical approaches in health-focused policies at the expense of horizontal and more systemic strategies, and the reinforcement of power asymmetries by consolidating governmentality and hierarchical structures over African societies without meaningful accountability.

Presenter Bio: Eyob Balcha Gebremariam is a Research Associate at the Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC), University of Bristol. His areas of interest include decolonial academic knowledge production, African political economy and the politics of development. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town (UCT), and a Research Fellow at the University of South Africa (UNISA). In addition to his Amharic and English blogs and newspaper contributions, his publications have appeared in the Journal of Northeast African Studies, IDS Bulletin, CODESRIA Bulletin, Global Social Challenges Journal, Africa Development, and the European Journal of Development Research.

Sustainable Social Policy and Welfare States Research Hub Seminar

Presenter: Professor Thomas Hale (University of Oxford)
Chair: Dr Liam Besier McGrath (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: Climate change and its consequences unfold over many generations. Past emissions affect our climate today, just as our actions shape the climate of tomorrow, while the effects of global warming will last thousands of years. Yet the priorities of the present dominate our climate policy and the politics surrounding it. Even the social science that attempts to frame the problem does not theorize time effectively. In this pathbreaking book, Thomas Hale examines the politics of climate change and other “long problems.” He shows why we find it hard to act before a problem’s effects are felt, why our future interests carry little weight in current debates, and why our institutions struggle to balance durability and adaptability. With long-term goals in mind, he outlines strategies for tilting the politics and policies of climate change toward better outcomes.

Presenter Bio: Thomas Hale is Professor in Public Policy (Global Public Policy) and the Director of the Master of Public Policy. Professor Hale’s research explores how we can manage transnational problems effectively and fairly. He seeks to explain how political institutions evolve – or not – to face the challenges raised by globalisation and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental, economic and health issues. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, a master's degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics, and an AB in public policy from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

His books include Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time (Princeton 2024), Beyond Gridlock (Polity 2017), Between Interests and Law: The Politics of Transnational Commercial Disputes (Cambridge 2015), Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge 2014), and Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing when We Need It Most (Polity 2013). Professor Hale co-leads the Net Zero Tracker and the Climate Policy Hub.

Mannheim Centre for Criminology Seminar

Presenter: Dr Simon Tawfic (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Dr Johann Koehler (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: This paper offers an ethnographic analysis of the emergence of British public protection policing, examining officials’ everyday pursuits to address the dual crises of austerity and police legitimacy. Since the early 2010s, Westminster governments have pledged to take ‘vulnerability’ seriously, while UK police forces, similarly beset by legitimacy crises, have also prioritised the ‘protection of vulnerable people from harm’, establishing public protection teams to signal this commitment. These crises serve as resources for officials to articulate a will to care that blends post-war welfarist sensibilities with contemporary humanitarian ends. Positioning themselves as a last resort against welfare retrenchment, public protection officials leverage discontent with austerity-stricken agencies, asserting the comparative advantage of their relational and compassionate style of working. They aspire to embody the nostalgic figure of the ‘noble bobby,’ assume personalised responsibility to alleviate suffering, idealise welfarist visions of reciprocal honesty and respectability, and embrace psychodynamic models that attribute criminality to disrupted familial attachments and trauma. By foregrounding these historically entrenched sensibilities, I argue that the vulnerability turn in policing is less a novel phenomenon than a re-enactment of enduring ideals about the role of policing and the welfare state. At its heart is a preoccupation to demonstrate care, promising to rebuild trust in policing while relying on state failure as its condition of possibility.

Presenter Bio: Simon Tawfic is an LSE Fellow in Social Policy. He was previously a research fellow on the Vulnerable State Project at Warwick Law School, having received his PhD in anthropology from LSE. He researches welfare and criminal justice in England from an ethnographic perspective, focusing on frontline officials' claims to care as a central ideal of their work. He has recently co-authored a comparative analysis of the will to care articulated by police and asylum officials in Theoretical Criminology, alongside co-editing and contributing to the forthcoming Embodied State edited collection.

Education Research and Policy Hub Seminar

Presenter: Dr Philip Noden (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Chair: Dr Sonia Exley (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: The seminar will illustrate some of the opportunities and challenges of carrying out research within Ofsted. This will be illustrated through discussion of completed research projects. These include, for example, an investigation of whether there was a relationship between school quality and the probability of imprisonment during early adulthood and a project focusing on pupil absence during inspections. The first of these projects, undertaken in collaboration with ONS, used newly available linked administrative data (linking the National Pupil Database to Ministry of Justice data) to investigate the relationship between school quality and subsequent imprisonment. The pupil absence project, using data from a single local authority, analysed absence data for year groups, within schools, for each half day during a period before and after a school inspection, to examine whether unusual school level variation could be identified. The seminar will discuss the two projects and also reflect on some of the differences between carrying out research within an academic institution compared with an inspectorate.

Presenter Bio: Philip Noden is an educational researcher. He works at Ofsted, the inspectorate responsible for the inspection of schools, early years providers, further education and skills providers and also children’s social care services. He is based in the Quantitative Research team at Ofsted which undertakes projects across any of Ofsted’s inspection remits. Prior to working at Ofsted, he was a researcher at LSE, working on numerous research projects funded by the Nuffield Foundation, Department for Education and other funders. As an academic researcher he had particular interests in social segregation between schools and educational quasi-markets. He is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Social Policy Department at LSE.

Presenter: Dr Joanna Clifton-Sprigg (The University of Bath)
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Abstract: We investigate the relationship between parental working from home (WFH) and school absence in England following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using administrative data on school absence from local authorities between 2011 and 2023, we exploit variation in WFH potential – constructed from occupational data linked to the 2011 Census – in a difference-in-differences event study design. Contrary to recent claims by policymakers, we find that higher WFH potential leads to lower school absence rates. Areas with above-median WFH potential saw a reduction in overall absence by 0.3–0.35 percentage points (around 7%), with effects larger in secondary schools and driven almost entirely by decreases in unauthorised absences.

Presenter Bio: Joanna is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Bath. In her research, she explores topics related to migration, education and gender inequalities, and she often works at the intersection of these areas. Her published work includes analysis of educational outcomes of children with migrant parents, international student mobility in the context of Brexit, and the role of parental and maternity leave policy design in take-up by parents. She has been supported by funding from ESRC, Research England, and the Nuffield Foundation. She is a keen advocate for equity and equality at Bath, leading on Widening Participation in the Department.

Catch up on our 2024/25 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

3 April 2025

The enduring effect of higher education on attitudes towards immigrants across generations and within the family
Presenter: Dr Victoria Donnaloja (University of Essex)
Watch the presentation here

27 March 2025

Inequalities in Applications and Offers to Graduate Recruitment Programmes
Presenter: Professor Lindsey Macmillan (UCL).
Watch the presentation here

20 March 2025

Family change and welfare provision in complex families: evidence from the UK and policy lessons from abroad
Presenter: Professor Susan Harkness (University of Bristol).
Watch the presentation here

20 February 2025

The Bystander Issue: Why Do We Take The Harassers' Side?
Presenter: Dr Margaux Suteau (LSE).
Watch the presentation here

13 February 2025

A Brief Introduction about the Young Lives Study and a Paper Presentation: "A Sound Methodology: Measuring Experiences of Violent Conflict through Audio Self-Interviews"
Presenter: Dr Marta Favara (University of Oxford)
Watch the presentation here

7 February 2025

Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite
Presenter: Professor Sam Friedman (LSE)
Watch the presentation here

30 January 2025

Working with Hope: Reflections on Researching Child Poverty in Incredibly Hard Times
Presenter: Professor Ruth Patrick (University of York).
Watch the presentation here

23 January 2025

How Should we Conceptualize the Sposal Relationship of 'Mixed Race' People?
Presenter: Professor Miri Song (University of Kent)
No video available

5 December 2024

Status-Enforcing Criminal Laws
Presenter: Professor Jamelia Morgan (Northwestern University)
Watch the presentation here

28 November 2024

Neighbourhood Migration and the Air Pollution Disadvantage of Immigrant Minorities
Presenter: Dr Tobias Rüttenauer (University College London)
No video available

21 November 2024

The role of default options and financial and pension literacy for retirement saving in a fully funded system
Presenter: Dr Piera Bello (University of Bergamo)
No video available

14 November 2024

Aid’s Impact on Social Protection in the Global South
Presenter: Dr Miguel Niño-Zarazúa (SOAS, University of London)
Watch the presentation here

24 October 2024

Understanding Global Blackness: Indigeneity, Reparations and the Post-colonial State SPECIAL Race Matters Initiative (RMI) Seminar
Presenter: Dr Althea-Maria Rivas (SOAS, University of London)
No video available

17 October 2024

The Concentration of Children on Income Distribution and Its Consequences for Poverty and Inequality
Presenter: Professor Berkay Ozcan (LSE)
Watch the presentation here

10 October 2024

Analysis of Cybercrime Issues in Anglophone West Africa
Presenter: Dr Suleman Lazarus (LSE)
Watch the presentation here

Catch up on our 2023/24 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

21 March 2024

Birth spacing and the health of mothers and fathers: an analysis of physical and mental health using individual- and sibling-fixed effects
Presenter: Dr Kieron Barclay

Watch the presentation here

14 March 2024

Intergenerational educational mobility during the twentieth century in 77 low- and middle-income and 15 high-income countries
Presenter: Dr Mobarak Hossain

Watch the presentation here

15 February 2024

Conflict-related migration: new insights from Ukraine
Presenter: Professor Lucinda Platt

Watch the presentation here

8 February 2024

Research similarity and Women in Academia
Presenter: Dr Alessandra Casarico

Watch the presentation here

1 February 2024

Colonization and Social Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Social Policy Development in South Asia; Pre to Post Colonial Era
Presenter: Dr Zahid Mumtaz

Watch the presentation here

25 January 2024

Intergenerational Poverty Persistence in Europe - is there a Great Gatsby Curve for Poverty?
Presenter: Professor Brian Nolan

Watch the presentation here

18 January 2024

Kingdon at 40: Multiple Streams, Multiple Flaws
Presenter: Dr Fabio Battaglia

No video available

7 December 2023

The Altruistic Authoritarian Citizen
Presenters:Professor Reza Hasmath (University of Alberta) and Dr Timothy Hildebrandt (LSE)

Watch the presentation here

23 November 2023

Formal Trade, Informal State: Public Authority and the Governance of Informal Cross-Border Trade in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Presenter: Dr Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa (SOAS, University of London)

Watch the presentation here

16 November 2023

Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research
Presenters: Professor Mario Small (Columbia University) and Dr Jessica Calarco (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Watch the presentation here

9 November 2023

The Political Economy of Women's Work in Palestine under Settler Colonialism
Presenter: Dr Samia M Al-Botmeh (Birzeit University)

Watch the presentation here

26 October 2023

Energy Policy Support Increases through Policy Goal Communication
Presenter: Dr Gracia Bruckmann (University of Bern)

No video available

12 October 2023

Marketing Development Studies in the Neoliberal University and How to Be Cosmopolitan
SPECIAL Race Matters Initiative (RMI) Seminar
Presenter: Dr Kamna Patel (University College London)

Watch the presentation here

5 October 2023

Imperial Development: The Humanitarian-Development Nexus in Jordan and Lebanon
Presenter: Dr Lama Tawakkol (University of Manchester)

Watch the presentation here

• Catch up on our 2022/23 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

30 March 2023

Social and academic embeddedness as buffers against school closure effects on schooling outcomes

Speaker: Professor Herman van de Werfhorst, European University Institute

Watch the video

23 March 2023

Zero poverty society: on how to lift the social floor

Speaker: Professor Ive Marx, University of Antwerp

Watch the video

2 February 2023

When the burden lifts: The effect of school and day care re-openings on parent’s employment and life satisfaction

Speaker: Professor Marita Jacob, University of Cologne

Watch the video

26 January 2023

More driven? Experimental evidence on differences in cognitive effort by social origin

Speaker: Dr Jonas Radl, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Watch the video

19 January 2023

An historical analysis of NGO registration in contemporary China

Speakers: Dr Tim Hildebrandt, Department of Social Policy, LSE, Dr Blake Miller, Department of Methodology, LSE, and Guodong Ju, Department of Social Policy, LSE.

Video not available

8 December 2022

Energy taxes, social policy, and economic vulnerability

Speaker: Professor Kenneth Nelson, SoFI, Stokholm University

Video not available

1 December 2022

What accounts for the recent 'tutoring revolution' in English education policy?

Speaker: Dr Sonia Exley, Department of Social Policy, LSE

Video not available

17 November 2022

Why research (does not) affect policy: experimental evidence on the role of perceived political bias

Speaker: Dr Berkay Ozcan, Department of Social Policy, LSE

Video not available

10 November 2022

Why do we need data on sex?

Speaker: Professor Alice Sullivan, UCL

Watch the video

20 October 2022

Disability and Trade Union Membership in the UK

Speaker: Professor Melanie Jones, Cardiff University

Watch the video

13 October 2022

A Political Economy of Behavioural Public Policy

Speaker: Dr Adam Oliver, Department of Social Policy, LSE

Watch the video

6 October 2022

Orderly Britain

Speaker: Professor Tim Newburn, Department of Social Policy, LSE

Watch the video

• Catch up on all of our 2021/22 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

19 May 2022

Wellbeing and Do-gooding? Critical understandings of individual altruism and human sociality

Speaker: Professor Hartley Dean (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

12 May 2022

Family Goals and Behavior in an International Comparative Analysis

Speaker: Dr Alicia Adserà (Princeton University)

Video not available

24 March 2022

Forgotten Wives: an alternative history of LSE

Speaker: Professor Ann Oakley (UCL Social Research Institute)

Watch the video

17 March 2022

Diversity in Seminar and Study Groups and Student Outcomes: Evidence from SP401

Speakers: Dr Berkay Ozcan and Valentina Contreras (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

10 March 2022

The Contours of Political Manipulation: Inside Richard Nixon’s ‘Law and Order’ Campaign

Speaker: Dr Leonidas Cheliotis (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Video not available

3 March 2022

Leaving Fathers Behind? The Politics of Departing from the Male Breadwinner Model in Germany and the UK

Speaker: Dr Sam Mohun-Himmelweit (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

24 February 2022

PISA, Political Discourse, and Education Governance in the Age of Global Reference Societies

Speaker: Professor Louis Volante (Brock University)

Watch the video

10 February 2022

Parental Skills, Assortative Mating, and the Incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Speaker: Dr Chiara Orsini (University of Sheffield)

Video not available

3 February 2022

Policy capacity matters for education reforms: A diverging tale of two Brazilian states

Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

27 January 2022

Income source confusion using the SILC

Speaker: Dr Iva Tasseva (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

9 December 2021

The Schumpeterian consensus: the new logic of global social policy to face the fourth industrial revolution

Speaker: Dr Vicente Silva (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

25 November 2021

Tracking system in education and inequalities. A longitudinal analysis of two school reforms in Switzerland

Speaker: Professor Georges Felouzis (University of Geneva)

Watch the video

18 November 2021

After Covid-19: what have we learned about the UK's labour market, inequality and the welfare system

Speaker: Dr Mike Brewer (Resolution Foundation)

Watch the video

11 November 2021

Home Care Fault Lines: Understanding Tensions and Creating Alliances (book talk)

Speaker: Professor Cynthia Crawford (University of Toronto)

Watch the video

4 November 2021

The Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Fertility in Low-Fertility China

Speaker: Dr Shuang Chen (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

7 October 2021

SLEEPWALKING INTO THE ‘POST-RACIAL’: SOCIAL POLICY AND THE STUDY OF RACE

Seminar based on joint Paper by Professor Coretta Phillips (Department of Social Policy, LSE) and Professor Fiona Williams (University of Leeds)

Speaker: Professor Coretta Phillips (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

• Catch up on all of our 2020/21 seminar series via our YouTube channel here.

23 March 2021

Which integration policies work? The heterogeneous impact of policies and institutions on immigrants’ labor market success in Europe

Speaker: Professor Lucinda Platt (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

16 March 2021

Unidentical Twins? Comparing Social Policy Responses to COVID-19 in North America

Speaker: Professor Daniel Béland (McGill University)

Watch the video

9 March 2021

Demographic Change and Perceptions of Racism

Speaker: Christopher Maggio (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video

2 March 2021

Poverty Among the Working Age Population in Post-Industrial Democracies (with some comments on inequality)

Speaker: Professor Evelyne Huber (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Watch the video

23 February 2021

Tense times for young migrants: Temporality, life-course, and immigration status

Speaker: Dr Vanessa Hughes (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Presentation slides

Watch the video

16 February 2021

Poverty, Not the Poor

Speaker: Professor David Brady (University of California, Riverside)

Watch the video

9 February 2021

Does Incarceration Shape Trust in the State, Community Engagement, and Civic Participation?

Speaker: Professor Chris Wildeman (Duke University)

Watch the video

2 February 2021

The normativity of marriage and the marriage premium for children’s outcomes

Speaker: Professor Florencia Torche (Stanford University)

Watch the video

26 January 2021

Inequalities in Breastfeeding in the U.S. across the 20th Century

Speaker: Dr Vida Maralani (Cornell University)

Watch the video

19 Jaunary 2021

Family structure and gender ideologies of youth in Britain

Speaker: Professor Pia Schober (University of Tübingen)

Watch the video

8 December 2020

The Company We Keep
Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships from Adolescence to Adulthood

Speaker: Professor Grace Kao (Yale University)

Watch the video

1 December 2020

They Can’t All Be Stars: The Matthew Effect, Status Bias, and Status Persistence in NBA All-Star Elections

Speaker: Dr Thomas Biegert (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Presentation slides

Watch the video

24 November 2020

How combination and sequence of weather events shape Mexico-U.S. migration flows

Speaker: Professor Filiz Garip (Cornell University)

Watch the video

17 November 2020

Policy Capacity Matters for Capacity Development: Comparing Teacher In-service Training and Career Advancement in Basic Education Systems of India and China

Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Presentation slides

Watch the video

10 November 2020

Social class inequalities in school GCSE attainment – Mis-reading cultural capital

Speakers: Professor Vernon Gayle (University of Edinburgh), Dr Sarah Stopforth (University of Sussex)

Watch the video

3 November 2020

From the Local to the Global: Care Chains, Ageing and Futurity through the Indian Ayah

Speaker: Dr Shalini Grover (International Inequalities Institute, LSE)

Presentation slides

Watch the video

28 October 2020

Mechanisms of Matthew effects in social investment

Speaker: Dr Amelia Peterson (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Presentation slides

Watch the video

2019/20

29 January 2020

‘Emplaced’ Indian Construction Labour-Camps: The Architecture of Discipline and the Limits to Collective Action.

Speaker: Dr Sunil Kumar (LSE, Department of Social Policy)

11 December 2019

Experimental Criminology and the Free-Rider Problem

Speakers: Dr Johann Koehler (LSE, Department of Social Policy) and Tobias Smith (UC-Berkeley)

30th October 2019

Collaborative ethnography and its limitations: Researching young migrants in London

Speaker: Vanessa Hughes (LSE, Department of Social Policy)

2018/19

13 March 2019

Challenging dominant social policy assumptions; an apprenticeship for young people with multiple problems and needs.

Speakers: Alice Sampson and Femi Ade-Davis

27 February 2019

Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means

Speakers: Professor Pamela Herd and Professor Donald Moynihan

30 January 2019

Towards a New Social Contract - Taking on Distributional Tensions in Europe and Central Asia

Speaker: Maurizio Bussolo

31 October 2018

How useful is Gillian Hart's Distinction between 'Little d' and 'Big D' Development? Theoretical Reflections, a Case Study, and some Lessons for Social Policy

Speaker: Professor David Lewis, LSE

2017/18

16 May 2018

Health implications of Economic Insecurity

Speaker: Professor Lars Osberg

7 March 2018

Police Reform and the Politics of Denial: An Academic's Journey into "Activism".

Speaker: Dr Michael Shiner, LSE

21 February 2018

Political Parties and Private Schools: A Comparative Analysis of Policy and Politics in England and Germany

Speaker: Dr Rita Nikolai, Humboldt University, Berlin

24 January 2018

The Kids Are Alright: The Rise in Non-Marital Births and Child Well-being

Speaker: Professor Christina Gibson-Davis, Duke University

10 January 2018

The Politics of Post-Crisis European Social Spending

Speaker: Dr Ian McManus, LSE

22 November 2017

Accumulation or Absorption? The Development of Household Non-Employment in Europe during the Great Recession

Speakers: Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus, University of Oxford, Dr Thomas Biegert, LSE

15 November 2017

Great Expectations: Long-term Poverty Reduction, Intergenerational Change and Young Beneficiaries’ Aspirations in Brazil’s Bolsa Família Programme

Speaker: Dr Hayley Jones, LSE

18 October 2017

Ethnic school composition and multiple ethnic identity formation of adolescents in the Netherlands

Speaker: Dr Gert-Jan Veerman, Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences

11 October 2017

Inter-ethnic relations of teenagers in England’s schools: the role of school and neighbourhood ethnic composition

Speaker: Professor Simon Burgess, University of Bristol