Dr Kate Hoskins
Reader - Education

Summary

Kate is a Reader in Education with a focus on policy. Her research interests rest on the intersections between education and social policy, identity and inequalities in relation to early years, further and higher education. Her recent funded project with Professor Alice Bradbury examined the role of nursery schools in reducing the impact of socio-economic disadvantage in the early years sector. The findings confirm these settings are working in a hostile policy context and yet to the families they support, they are a frontline service, compensating for growing gaps in social welfare in the UK. She has published on inequalities in ECEC, with a focus on the role of policy in exacerbating these.

Kate's most recent research on social mobility with Professor Bernard Barker examines the role of the family in intra and inter-generational social movement. They take a unique genealogical approach to researching social mobility, using a university chemistry department as a case study to explore participants’ motives for pursuing a STEM undergraduate degree and the influences that have shaped them.

Kate is now working on a British Academy funded research project with Professor Marie-Pierre Moreau and Dr Ellen McHugh to examine the precarious transitions undertaken by doctoral researchers negotiating the shift to an academic post. 

Qualifications

PhD (ESRC fully funded scholarship) King's College London

Fellow, Higher Education Academy

MA Education Policy & Society (distinction), King's College London

BA Education Studies (1st class), London Metropolitan University

Responsibility

Director of Internationalisation, Department of Education 

Research Group Leader - Education, Identities and Society (EIS)

Outline of areas of interest

The Education, Identities and Society (EIS) research group is comprised of interdisciplinary scholars working within the Department of Education. The group has a strong and sustained research profile which sits at the intersection of Education, Sociology, Human Geography, Youth Studies and Digital Presence. Our work covers all educational sectors, and includes informal and alternative education settings. We strive for theoretically driven research that also has an important applied and policy focus. Our areas of expertise include:

• Access and widening participation
• Embodiment and embodied learning
• Family and parenting
• Youth identities
• Professional formations and professional identities
• Power, resistance, and compliance

This list is not exhaustive and there is much work going on in associated areas. We have considerable success in grant capture, publication, and research impact.  The group aims to collaborate and support each other with writing articles, book chapters, monographs, conference papers and research grant applications. The group also plans and hosts research seminar events which draw on the professional networks of group members within our individual areas expertise.