Dr Julius Elster
Julius is educated at London School of Economics, where he obtained an overall Distinction in MSc Philosophy of the Social Sciences, and did his doctoral studies with University of Birmingham, where he was given the Government and Society Scholarship to pursue a PhD in Sociology. His main field of research is the sociology of youth and contemporary social theory. He is also interested in understanding youth social action and drawing on participatory approaches when conducting research. Before embarking on his academic trajectory, Julius was a Learning Mentor Manager for Haringey Council, in North London, and Youth Project Manager for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club developing and running outreach programmes in North and East London.
Julius has experience in using a range of qualitative research approaches, including interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), in-depth interviews, youth-led participatory action research (YPAR), as well as qualitative data analysis softwares, such as NVivo. His research examines, among other things, negative and stigmatised representations of marginalised groups, epistemic injustice, super-diversity, youth-identity formation and young people’s transitions to adulthood. Besides being involved in London Met's Empowering London initiative and the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre, Julius has professional memberships in the following associations and research groups: British Sociological Association (BSA), Norsk Sosiologforening (Norwegian Sociological Association), Cambridge Social Ontology Group (CSOG), European Network for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (ENPOSS) and European Sociological Association (RN30 Youth and Generation).
Julius is a module leader and teacher on the Youth and Community Work MSc, and course leader for the Youth Studies BSc (Hons) in the School of Social Professions. Before moving to London Metropolitan University, he taught sociology and social theory while being a doctoral researcher in the Department of Social Policy at University of Birmingham.
- Elster, J. and Agyeman, A. (2026) Participatory toolkit: participatory research with young people. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18778119
- Elster, J., Agyeman, A., Stirbu, D., Webb, J. Holloway, M., Hills, S., and Hunte, R. (2025) Understanding youth social action: project report. Available at: https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/10404/
- Lewis, J., Elster, J., Nyby, J., Fernando, S. and Homayounvala, E. (2024) Haringey employment gap research project: summary and full report. Available at: https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/9046/
- Elster, J. (2020) 'Youth voices in post-English riots Tottenham: the role of reflexivity in negotiating negative representations', The Sociological Review. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2017.1397527.
- Elster, J. (2020) 'Sarah Pickard: Politics, Protest and Young People [book review]', Journal of Applied Youth Studies. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43151-020-00015-3.
- Elster, J. (2019) The reflexive voices of young people in Tottenham: youth-identity formation, reflexivity and negative representations. University of Birmingham, PhD. Available at: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/9665/.
- Elster, J. (in press) 'Thinking inside the “black box:” taking young people’s reflexivity and lived experiences seriously', in: Carrigan, M. and Brock, T. (eds.) Reflections on Reflexivity. London: Routledge.
- Elster, J. (2019) '“That’s not who we are”: Tottenham’s youth identities in the context of austerity cuts and the 2011 England Riots', Nordic Youth Research Symposium. Available at: https://psy.au.dk/fileadmin/Psykologi/Aktuelt/NYRIS-2019-programme-final-13-8-19.pdf.
- Elster, J. (2019) 'Misrepresentations and the reflexive voices of youth in Tottenham since the 2011 England Riots', The State of Youth: Inequality, Insecurity and Transitions to Adulthood (School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol). DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22654.64322/1.
- Elster, J. (2017) 'The Temporal Dimension of Reflexivity: linking reflexive orientations to stock of knowledge', Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 18: 3, 274–293. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2017.1397527.
- Elster, J. (2016) 'Subjective experiences of youth living in poverty: the process of self-stereotyping', Child and Youth Poverty: Contexts, Concepts and Consequences (University of Leeds). Available at: https://icy.leeds.ac.uk/events/child-and-youth-poverty-conference-2016/.
- Elster, J. (2016) 'The predicate–property distinction: a reconciliation of intra-activity and social embeddedness', Annual European Network for the Social Sciences conference. Available at: http://www.helsinki.fi/tint/enposs2016#program.
- Elster, J. (2016) 'Youth-identity formation and reflexive orientations through a phenomenological perspective', Reflexivity Forum. Available at: http://socialontology.org/?p=896.