Overview

My research interests and projects focus on topics in the field of social stratification and mobility. I study processes within families and schools that contribute to the impact of socioeconomic background or social class on academic and cognitive abilities, school outcomes and educational attainment of children and young people. I study questions mostly from a sociological perspective, at the level of individual interactions within families and schools, and across different countries and education systems. I mainly use large-scale survey data but also collect quantitative and qualitative data for mixed-methods projects. 

In my PhD, which I conducted at the Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim, I assessed social class differentials in students’ transition from lower to upper secondary education in France. Since then I have been working on projects on social stratification in parental involvement and parenting values using French and British survey data, primary data projects on teacher students’ social justice attitudes and evaluations of education policy and systems with German data spanning over several decades. During my work as Q-Step Lecturer at the School of Education at the University of Glasgow (2014-2018) I also studied quantitative skills development of students in Initial Teacher Education.

Katherin is a core member of the Centre for Social Mobility.

Career

• Since 2018 Lecturer in Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter
• 2014-2018 Lecturer in Quantitative Social Sciences, Q-Step Centre and School of Education, University of Glasgow
• 2013/14 Research Assistant, School of Education, University of Glasgow
• 2010-2013 Teaching and Research Associate, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim 

Research group links

• Centre for Research in Professional Learning
• Centre for Social Mobility