Dr Laura Davies, Senior Lecturer

Dr Laura Davies

Senior Lecturer

Dr Davies is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology. She is a qualitative researcher with a background in social policy research. Her research examines how policy interventions that are designed to change and/or encourage particular behaviours relate to the lived experiences of service users. Laura's teaching is focused around inequalities, class and the welfare state.

Laura's research aims to understand how the complex policy landscape is understood and navigated by those who access support from an increasingly fragmented welfare state, and how the assumptions embedded in policy development relate to service users lived experiences.

Before joining Leeds Beckett University in 2015, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds on the ESRC funded research project Following Young Fathers. The project used qualitative longitudinal methods to develop understandings of the changing lives and support needs of young fathers.

Laura's work on the project focused primarily on a case study evaluation of local service provision, secondary analysis of existing data sets and a mapping of existing service provision across the UK. She worked in collaboration with practitioners and policy makers to co-create knowledge and make these research findings accessible so that they may inform the development of policies and services. She sat on the Steering Group of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood, took a lead role in managing the project Knowledge Bank and working with the project strategy group. She also contributed to local authority training for practitioners on working with and engaging fathers in family support services.

Current Teaching

Laura is module leader for the following modules:

  • Inequality of Class and Culture
  • Poverty, Inequality and the Welfare State
  • Men and Masculinities

She also contributes to seminar teaching on the module Doing Sociology in Leeds and supervises dissertation students.

Research Interests

Laura's research interests include life-course transitions; care ethics; welfare-to-work; family policy; policy evaluation; conditionality and the morality of welfare; fatherhood; inter-generational exchange; QL methods; secondary analysis; knowledge to action and knowledge exchange.

Her current research is focussed on practice and policy responses to family support needs and she has a particular interest in the co-production of research with service providers and service users.

Laura is Co-Lead of the CeASR Social Change programme, sits on the Associate Editorial Board of the journal Sociological Research Online and is a member of the Social Policy Association.

Dr Laura Davies, Senior Lecturer

Selected Outputs