Sumi Hollingworth

I work as a senior research fellow at The Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE) at London Metropolitan University, specialising in research which explores intersecting inequalities of social class, race and gender in the context of education, and schooling in particular. I work at the nexus of sociology of education; youth studies and geography.  A significant impetus for my research is to uncover or expose the often hidden workings of class, race and gender privilege which is so central to (and silent in) educational success. I have worked as a researcher with Diane Reay and have written about the white middle classes in urban schools. I am interested in the formation of youth identities through educational transitions and have published a co-authored book on Urban youth and schooling (2010 OU Press) with Louise Archer and Heather Mendick, researching students who ‘drop out’ of school. I have  led a small grant project exploring the imagined futures of working class young people for careers in the creative sector (see Allen and Hollingworth, 2013); and I am currently working on research exploring the school’s role in promoting young people’s aspirations for Higher Education.

I am currently completing my doctoral research on social mixing and friendship formation amongst urban youth, supervised by Carole Leathwood, Diane Reay and Kim Allen. Drawing together diverse literature on the urban and multiculture; youth subcultural studies; and feminist friendship studies, using a cultural class analysis, I explore the practices and process which lead to differentiation and stratification in urban young people’s friendship groupings and particularly the pivotal role of governmental regimes of schooling.

I have recently co-organised a conference on The Riots One Year On, at London Southbank University with Kim Allen, Yvette Taylor and Ayo Mansaray and am co-editing a special issue on the topic for Sociological Research Online.   

I review for Gender and Education; Sociological Research Online and Urban Studies among other journals.  I am a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA) Sociology of Education; Youth Studies and Bourdieu Study Groups.

I teach on BA Education Studies and a taught doctoral programme on education and social justice.

My research interests include:

• Urban schooling
• Youth and identity
• Intersecting identities of social class, ‘race’ and gender
• Social mobility and youth education transitions