Dr Utsa Mukherjee
Senior Lecturer in Education

Summary

I am a Senior Lecturer and Director of Research at the Department of Education, Brunel University of London. 

My research spans the disciplines of Sociology and Social Geography, with inter-connected research interests in the study of childhood, youth and families, social inequality, and leisure. My work across these thematic areas is guided by a commitment to equity and social justice. I am interested in exploring and theorising the way social inequalities are reproduced across time and place, and the way structural inequalities mediate the lived experiences of minoritized subjects. 

I am currently PI of two British Academy funded projects: 

(i) Centring Families in Iceland’s Just Transition (with Dr Auður Magndís Auðardóttir and Dr Auður Aðalsteinsdóttir) (BA funding contribution: £ 294,842)

(ii) Enhancing Writing Skills and Building Academic Networks: Supporting Career Development of EarlyCareer Social Science Researchers in Indonesia (with Dr Fitri Arlinkasari, Prof Vina Adriany, Prof Emma Wainwright and Dr Indra Yohanes Kiling) (BA funding contribution: £ 21,210)

My first monograph Race, Class, Parenting and Children’s Leisure (Bristol University Press, 2023) was the runner-up of the British Sociological Association's Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2024. I have also solo-edited two interdisciplinary volumes: Childhoods & Leisure (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and Debating Childhood Masculinities  (Emerald, 2024). 

I am the Associate Editor of two peer-reviewed international journals: Journal of Family Studies and Schole: A Journal for Recreation & Leisure Studies Education. I am also the Book Review editor of Sociological Forum and Children & Society. I am an editorial board member of the following peer-reviewed journals: 

• British Journal of Sociology
• British Journal of Sociology of Education
• Sociology Compass
• Children & Society
• Sociological Forum
• Leisure Studies
• World Leisure Journal

I am a Trustee of Academy of Social Sciences (the UK's national academy of academics, practitioners and learned societies in social science). I sit on the executive committee of Leisure Studies Association and I am currently an executive committee member cum Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Officer of the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers). Within Brunel, I am a member of the Education, Identities and Society (EIS) research group within the Department of Education as well of the pan-university Centre for Global Lives and Centre for Health and Wellbeing Across the Lifecourse (CHWL).

Qualifications

PhD Sociology (Royal Holloway, University of London)

BA English (Major) with Sociology and History (Presidency University Kolkata, India)

Responsibility

Director of Research, Department of Education, Brunel University of London

UoA 23 (Education) REF Lead and Research Impact Lead, Brunel University of London

Co-Lead, 'Education, Identities and Society' Research Group, Brunel University of London

Member, Anti-Racism Steering Group, Brunel University of London

Member, Equity Steering Group, Brunel University of London