| Post: | Reader in Sociology |
| Other posts: | Reader in Sociology (Gender Studies) |
| Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange (Lps School) | |
| Location: | Friston Building FR-254 |
| Email: | R.Woodfield@sussex.ac.uk |
| Telephone numbers | |
| Internal: | 8290 or 8890 |
| UK: | (01273) 678290 or (01273) 678890 |
| International: | +44 1273 678290 or +44 1273 678890 |
Biography
I studied philosophy at undergraduate and postgraduate level before undertaking a doctorate in Science & Technology Policy Studies at the Science Policy Research Unit. I have been teaching Sociology at Sussex for over 10 years. My primary research interests are gender in the context of science, technology and work, especially gender-atypical working environments and gender in the context of higher education. I am also very interested in research methods, and the philosophy underpinning different methodological approaches. My research is located within the Gender, Inequality and Work group here in the Sociology department, and I am Research Leader of this group.
Community & Business
Ruth is a member of the Senior Researchers' Group for the Community and University Partnership Programme (CUPP).
Research
My main research interest is gender, and I explore the causes and effects of this fundamental social category using qualitative and quantitative methods, and by analysing empirical data in the context of a range of theoretical approaches. I have mostly worked on gender differences and inequalities in the context of science and technology, employment and education. I also have a research interest in methodologies and the philosophical assumptions underpinning them.
My first book Women, Work and Computing (2000 Cambridge University Press) was an ethnography of gender differences within an occupational computing culture, and data from that project has been used in a comparative study with a second sweep of later data from another organisation. I have also recently completed a project, based on quantitative and qualitative data, for the Fire Service, Female application and recruitment levels to the Fire Service. The results have been distributed to all Fire Brigades within England and are currently been written up into articles and, in combination with other data on the teaching profession, has formed the basis of another book What Women Want From Work: gender and occupational choice in the 21st century (Palgrave MacMillan, October 2007).
My work on gender differences in education focuses on on exploring factors that influence higher education student experience and attainment. I have undertaken projects using both qualitative and quantitative data to study these, and related, issues. One, large-scale, quantitative project based at Sussex University - An analysis of factors affecting undergraduate progress and attainment - resulted in a number of papers exploring the relationship between factors including personality traits and degree outcome and gender and degree outcome. A further study sponsored by the Society for Research into Higher Education's Younger Researcher/Carfax Award, 2001 - An exploration of factors underlying lower male attendance rates at university - looked at the relationships between gender and attendance patterns at undergraduate level. A third ESRC-funded HE project - Undergraduate student perceptions of first year experience - analysed qualitative data collected from students via email and focused on a large range of topics, including, for example, their attitudes to difference modes of assessment within their studies. Most recently, I have worked on the analysis of a large HESA-supplied dataset, focusing on the relationship between gender and degree outcome by subject area, especially the difference between degree outcomes for the Arts and Sciences, and the relationship between graduates' age and their post-university employment experiences for a project funded by the Eurpean Social Fund Equal programme.
My new projects focus on exploring gender differences in perceptions and understanding of climate change, its associated risks and possible mitigations, and in the discrepancy between self-report measures and behaviour.
Research Supervision
Current doctoral students:
- Kate Calamatta - An ethnographic alanysis of gender differences in the horse riding industry.
- Francesca Conti - At Home and Abroad: an exploration of Italian graduate migration.
- Haydn Evans - A critical realist assessment of performance management in schools.
- Johanna Hunt - A narrative analysis of agile software use.
- Elizabeth Ibegbulam - A Participatory Research Approach Assessment of 14 Year Olds' Subject Choices, Their Perceptions Of IT And IT Work.
- Paula Rich -A qualitative analysis of senior female managers experience of their gender identity within work and outside of it.
- Christopher Shaw - An analysis of the establishment of 2 degrees as the acceptable level of global warming.
- Lucy Solomon -A qualitative survey of mature student experiences of higher education (with particular focus on age and gender).
- Jong-Soon Ahn - The Study of Maternal Employment in South Korea: Mothers' Choices and Constraints
Previous doctoral students:
- Tamsin Hinton Smith - A qualitative email survey of single-parents' experience of higher education.
- Ozge Atkas - Social Capital & Inequalities amongst Istanbul squatters
- Emma Scott -To What Extent is the Indian IT Sector Gender Neutral?
- Andy Mantell - Huntington's Disease:The Carer's Story.
- Sarah Earl-Novell - Gender Differentiation in First Class Academic Achievement at University.
Teaching
Sociology of Education
Sociological Research Methods
Gender Through the Life Course
Sociology Project
Publications
Books
2000 Women, Work and Computing (Cambridge University Press), pp. xi +209
Research Reports
2009 Women’s Leadership in the Fire Service: A Report based on Women’s Leadership Workshop participants’ verbal and written contributions, Final Report to Fire and Rescue Service: 1-72
2007 Mature Students' employment rates and experiences, Equal Action 3, European Social Fund 1-35
2003 Female Recruitment Levels to the Fire Service, Final Report to East Sussex Fire Brigade: 1-121
2002 Student Perceptions of the First Year Experience of University 2000-2001 - Results from a Qualitative Email Survey, Final Report to University of Sussex: 1-169
1995 Identifying and Developing Potential Electronic Messaging Applications: Issues and Strategies, Final Report to Swedish National Post Office: 1-40
1993 The Future Use and Diffusion of Electronic Data Interchange in Europe: The UK Case, Final Report to International Postal Corporation: 1-45
1990 Office Automation and Social Change in Europe: The UK Case, with Brady, T., Science Policy Research Unit, report for the DGV at the Commission of the European Communities: 1-20
Articles, Chapters & Essays
(Under submission)
‘The relationship between age and first destination employability for UK graduates: are mature students disadvantaged?', Woodfield, R.
Published:
2009 'The determinants of undergraduate degree performance: how important is gender?', Barrow, M. Reilly, B. & Woodfield, R., British Educational Research Journal, 35(4): 575 - 597
2007 'Individual and gender differences in 'good'and 'first-class' undergraduate degree performance', Farsides, T & Woodfield, R, British Journal of Pyschology, 98: 467-483.
2006 'An assessment of the extent to which subject variation in relation to the award of First class degree between the Arts and Sciences can explain the 'gender gap'', Woodfield R & Earl-Novell S, British Journal of Sociology of Education, June 2006: 27 (3): 355-372
2006 'Women and Recruitment to the IT Profession in the UK', in Trauth, E.M. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, Pennsylvania State University Press. April, 2006: 1238-1244
2006 'Gender and Computing at University in the UK, in Trauth, E.M. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, Pennsylvania State University Press. April, 2006: 365-371
2006 'Gender, Attendance and Degree Outcome', Woodfield R, Jessop D & McMillan L, (2006) Studies in Higher Education, Vol 31 (1): 1-22
2006 'Work and its Limitations', Sociology, 30 (4): 567-575
2005 'Gender and mode of assessment at university: Should we assume female students are better suited to coursework and males to unseen examinations?', Woodfield R, Earl-Novell S & Solomon L, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 30 (1): 33-48
2003 'Individual differences and undergraduate academic success: the roles of personality, intelligence and application', Farsides T & Woodfield R, Personality and Individual differences, 34: 1225-1243
2002 'Women and Information Systems development: Not just a pretty (inter)face', Information Technology and People, 15 (2): 119-138
2002 'Gender and performance in HE: the impact of mode of assessment', Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Journal, February. [Reprinted in C-Sap, The Higher Education Academy, (2004)]
2001 'Social relations and intellectual evaluation in self and peer assessment of Sociology Students' with Platt et al., in Harrison and Mears (eds.) Assessing Sociologists in Higher Education (Ashgate): 123-42
2000 'Nature over Nurture: Temperament, Personality and Lifespan' with McCrae et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78 (1): 173-186
1999 'Explaining Gender Differences in Higher Education: Preliminary results from a Sussex Panel Survey', Learning Matters, 10 (1999): 9-12
1999 'Explaining Gender Differences in Achievement in Higher Education: Results from a British Panel Survey', in Fogelberg et al. (eds.) Hard Work in the Academy: Research and Interventions on Gender Inequalities (Helsinki University Press): 93-101
1998 'Working Women and Social Labour' in Castiglione (ed.) Rusel Forum For Comparative Political Economy (Exeter University Press): 1-24