News and Blog

Dr Kevin Smith features in The Conversation on how boys and girls perform at school and how they feel when at school: ‘Girls may perform better at school than boys – but their experience is much less happy’. The article is accessed through the link below. https://theconversation.com/girls-may-perform-better-at-school-than-boys-but-their-experience-is-much-less-happy-63161

Professor Stephen Drinkwater was broadcast as part of a feature on Share Radio about whether a cut in the number of low-skilled EU migrants would hurt the UK economy. A recording of the broadcast is provided below. https://audioboom.com/posts/5003441-would-a-cut-in-the-number-of-low-skilled-eu-migrants-hurt-the-uk-economy

  In 2014, I presented a paper at the British Education Research Association’s (BERA) annual conference. Shortly after the presentation, I was approached by an editor with Palgrave MacMillan and asked if I was interested in publishing a book as part of the Pivot series on citizenship education in Wales. I was delighted by the…

New research by Professor Paul Chaney has been published in the leading international academic publication Journal of Civil Society (Routledge, T & F, Impact factor 1.22). It argues that existing studies generally fail to systematically examine the way that contextual factors shape political representation outside of political parties, government and the formal business of electing parliamentarians….

Just 18 weeks passed between the announcement of a UK referendum on EU membership, and the vote for Brexit. In this startlingly short time an intense and competitive environment sprung-up as the two official campaigns Vote Leave and Britain Stronger in Europe made their case. Both sides quickly succumbed to name calling, dishonesties and emotional arguments. As a result…

Dr Sioned Pearce explores trust in relation to voting preference in the EU Referendum campaigns. The study found remarkably low levels of trust for the campaigns on both sides among all age groups, adding to the argument that the campaigns tapped-into mistrust rather than created it over an 18 week period. For Dr Sioned Pearce’s blog post…

On July 19th Dr Dawn Mannay give a well-attended seminar presentation at Cardiff School of Social Sciences. The event was jointly hosted by WISERD and the Social Research Association Cymru. Dr Mannay’s talk explored how different visual and creative research approaches can be employed to work with diverse communities. The seminar focused on the data production…

The bilingual film Patagonia will be screened on Thursday 4th August with Dr Mirain Rhys taking part in the expert panel discussion following the film. In collaboration with Cardiff University sciSCREEN programme, the screening aims to engage audiences in research through cinema.  The screening will be followed by a panel discussion of five speakers who will relate…

On the 19th July, as part of the WISERD Cardiff Lunchtime Seminar Series, Professor Paul Chaney, WISERD Co-Director, outlined the findings of his research on parliamentary scrutiny and the representation of women and disabled people at Westminster. The work explores patterns and processes of “substantive representation” over the post-war period. This term refers to the situation whereby…

Wales’ largest social science conference took place at the new Bay Campus at Swansea University last week. The seventh annual event brought together practitioners, policy makers and social scientists to discuss and debate themes such as health; social care; wellbeing; education; culture & values; environment; labour markets; devolution; and civil society – with over 70 papers…