Research
Sociology at UNE reflects the lively diversity of theoretical approaches, research methods, and substantive research areas that characterises sociology as a whole. Our units crisscross the entire discipline and together, in their similarities and in their differences, invite students to actively participate in the sociological project—the attempt to understand how society works.
All members of the discipline at UNE are active researchers and teach in their areas of expertise.
In 2003 the Discipline was host to The Australian Sociological Association, Conference, titled: New Times, New Worlds and New Ideas: Sociology Today and Tomorrow.
Jude Brown (MAppStat, Macquarie University) has a broad range of quantitative data analysis and data management skills developed through working in the fields of Medical Psychology, Social Policy and Sociology.
Experience in data analysis includes survival analysis and several regression techniques (Linear, Logistic, Poisson, Tobit), including random coefficients models, for administrative, survey, longitudinal and time use dairy data. Current research interests include the study of physical activity in four year olds (and the relationship to obesity), work and family balance, 'stress' and quality of life.
Professor Kerry Carrington (Ph.D., Macquarie University) developed a research career in academia and government before taking up the Chair in Sociology at University of New England in 2005. From 2003 to 2004 she headed a research unit in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – an Australian Government statutory authority. Before that she worked as a senior research specialist in social policy for the Australian Parliament providing analysis and advice to Members of Parliament. During that time she also published a number of briefs of relevance to national policy issues on the topics of gender and higher education, domestic violence in Australia, immigration crime & border control, trafficking and the sex industry. From 1995 to 2002 she was an Associate Professor at the University of Western Sydney, where she headed the Critical Social Sciences teaching and research academic unit. She currently has a wide variety of research interests stemming initially from her Phd work on juvenile justice, youth culture and female delinquency and later grant funded research projects on crime and violence in rural Australia, forthcoming as a book Policing the Rural Crisis (Federation Press, 2006). She has a particular research interest in the prevention of sexual violence, victim’s rights and community crime prevention more generally, and has published extensively in international journals, as well as in a number of sole and co-authored books. She has been a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Sociology since 2000, and has professional memberships with the Australian Sociological Association and the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology.
Peter Corrigan (Ph.D., University of Dublin) specializes in the study of consumption practices, media and cybersociety, power in discourse, qualitative methods, and the relationship between aesthetics and the social. He is the author of numerous articles in these areas; his book The Sociology of Consumption is currently being translated into a fourth foreign language.
David Gray (Ph.D., University of Florida) is currently working on his third book, his second in the area of health and medicine. The author of numerous research articles, Dr. Gray has studied extensively the social experiences of families with autistic children, conducting studies concerning the experience of stigma, relationships between parents and treatment providers, coping strategies, the effects of gender, and the perception of autism. He also specializes in qualitative methodology.
Gail Hawkes (Ph.D., University of Manchester) recently joined the staff at UNE. She is a foundation member of an international organisation of scholars in sexuality in developed and developing countries. Researching, writing and teaching about sexuality in both Australia and the UK, Dr. Hawkes is the author of two acclaimed books on the history and sociology of sex and sexuality as well as many journal articles and book chapters in this area. Her second monograph, Sex and Pleasure in Western Culture, was published by Polity Press in 2004. She is coeditor and a major contributor to a forthcoming book, Perspectives in Human Sexuality, to be published by Oxford University Press. Currently she is researching issues relating to sexual diversity in rural communities (with Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, North West NSW), sex and aging in Australia (in conjunction with Professor Victor Minichiello in the UNE Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies) and sex, contraception and young women in a rural setting (in conjunction with New England Area Health Service).
Eric Livingston (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles) does studies of skill and reasoning in areas ranging from draughts and the tango to mathematics and laboratory chemistry. He teaches units in the practice of everyday life, ethnomethodology, and research methods.
John Scott (Ph.D., University of Newcastle), also a more recent member of staff, is a specialist in interpretive methods and socio-cultural analysis. His main research interests are deviance, crime and social control, sexuality and gender, and health and illness. Dr. Scott has published a number of articles in these areas and has acted as a consultant. In 2002, Culture, Health & Sexuality awarded his article ‘Prostitution and Public Health in New South Wales’ first prize for a ‘paper by a new researcher’. His forthcoming publications include Perspectives in Human Sexuality (co-edited with Gail Hawkes), Oxford University Press, and Geneaological Analysis of Prostitution and Public Health: Differentiating the Bad from the Bad, Edwin Mellen Press.
Steve Thiele (Ph.D., University of New England) has central research interests in social theory. Informed in part by deep, critical readings of the classical theorists, his book Morality in Classical European Sociology. The Denial of Social Plurality examines the way that morality is built into social theory. One focus of Dr. Thiele’s work is on the conflict between a priori assumptions about the nature of social life and the understanding of social life by collecting evidence via practices of inquiry. A second major area of research concerns the essential connections between social life and biology, and how their separation in sociology distorts fundamental sociological issues and leads to the intellectual and moral denigration of biology within sociology.
These brief biographical sketches reflect not only the breadth of coverage, but the innovative, contemporary approaches to teaching and research that distinguish sociology at UNE. Sociology students are invited into an active, participatory exploration of social life in all its diversity; the units at UNE introduce them to a dynamic sociology that will continue to affect their perception and understanding of the social world well beyond their time at the university.