Dr Ciaran Burke

Qualifications:

BA (hons), PhD, PgCert, FHEA

Position:

Associate Professor in Higher Education

Department:

School of Education and Childhood

Telephone:

+441173287034

Email:

Ciaran.Burke@uwe.ac.uk

About me

I originally studied Sociology at Queen's University Belfast (2004-2008), after graduation I stayed at Queen's University to pursue my PhD research (2008-2012) which examined the role of social class on graduate employment trajectories. I joined the UWE team as a Associate Professor in September 2019.  I teach on a range of programmes including the MA in education and our Professional Doctorate in Education.  In addition to teaching, I supervise students conducting research for their MAs and doctorates.  I served as Associate Head of Department for Research from 2022 – 2024.  I am currently the pathway lead for Education for the ESRC Southwest Doctoral Training Partnership.  Outside of UWE I am a convenor for the Society for Research into Higher Education Employment, Enterprise and Work-Based Learning network. 

My research interests cover a range of areas including higher education, graduate employment and social justice.  In particular, I’m interested in examining barriers to participating in higher education and the graduate labour market.  My work has recently focused on the concept of resilience and problematising its agentic presentation in public discourse.  The majority of my work applies Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual tools to make sense of why inequalities exist and more importantly why they continue to dominate society. 

Area of expertise

Bourdieusian social theory 

Graduate employment 

Graduate resilience 

Widening participation 

Biographical methods 

Social class 

Publications

Publications loading...