Researcher profiles
Here is some information on who is doing what in the worlds of international volunteering & gap year research. If you would like to be added to this list then get in touch.Dr. Simon Beames
University of Chichester.
s.beames@education.edu.ac.uk
Simons' PhD research focused on an expedition to Ghana with Raleigh International.
The thesis explores the ways in which young people were influenced by
their experiences and the critical elements of the expedition that elicited
these outcomes. Simon has published several papers from his work and his
PhD thesis is available electronically.More...
Dr. Tara Duncan
The Royal Geographic Society (with IBG)
taraduncun@yahoo.com
Tara's interests focus on young budget travellers and more specifically on those young people who undertake
some sort of paid work whilst travelling. Her (soon to be completed) PhD aims to consider the impacts of work and travel on young people’s perception of self as she believes that this type of travel, for some young people, is often about exploring themselves rather than exploring the places and people they are visiting.'PDF of recent paper
Andrew King
University of Surry
a.king@surrey.ac.uk
Andrew is a sociologist currently working on his PhD: ''Minding the Gap:
using the 'Gap Year' as a resource for the sociological analysis of the
relationship between identities and the life course'. His primary interest
is in grounding theoretical concepts within 'real world' settings and
social interactions. He is currently organising a conference on the gap
year to be held early in 2007.
Dr Sue Heath
University of Southampton
sjheath@socsci.soton.ac.uk
Sue is a sociologist of youth and education, with research interests in
the pre-university gap year and its links to issues of social and cultural
capital. She is also interested in the growing institutionalisation and
commodification of the gap year 'experience'and its relationship to debates
concerning individualisation and'delayed adulthood'. She has a paper on
these themes currently under review.PDF
of working paper
Tom Griffin
tomgriffin77@mac.com
Tom did a masters in tourism research at the University of the West of England, and wrote his masters thesis 'A Discourse Analysis of UK Sourced Gap year Overseas Projects' on the gap year. he is currently living and working in Australia and is keen to contiue working in tourism research,PDF of thesis
Dr.Andrew Jones,
School of Geography, Birkbeck London
Research interests in the gap year concentrate on the impact participation in international volunteer work has on participants skills and career, as well as the sociological nature of international volunteering. Dr Jones has published the 'Review of Gap Provision' a report comissioned by the DfES, and is active in ongoing gap year research. DfES report (PDF)
Tom Roberts
Tom's interests focus on the impact of western volunteers working in developing countries on local communities. He wrote his MA thesis: 'Are Western Volunteers Reproducing and Reconstructing the Legacy of Colonialism in Ghana? An Analysis of the Experiences of Returned Volunteers', on international volunteering. He has recently put together a PhD proposal 'The social and development geographies of volunteering: host community impacts and experiences in Ghana' with Andrew Jones and Emma Mawdsley at Birkbeck College and Ben Page at UCL. However, is currently struggling to find finding. PDF of MA thesis
Dr.Kate Simpson,
Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
kate@gapyearresearch.org Kate's research interests are focused on international volunteering, discourse analysis of the gap year and critical pedagogy, she has a number of publications availiable including her PhD thesis. Kate also manages this website and if you have any comments or want to be included on the site then please email Kate directly. PDF of thesis
Nadia Soderman
University of Brighton in England
N.Soderman@bton.ac.uk
Nadia's' PhD is on the element of volunteering overseas and whether it is necessary to have a knowledge (whether basic, intermediate or fluency) of the language of the country to fully enjoy the experience. Some organisations require this and some of them offer tuition as part of the experience. More...
Katherine Tubb
Katherine's masters thesis puts interntional volunteering into an international development context, asking questios about how it repropduces hisorical relationships whilst also offering new, participatory development interventions. Katherine also runs the international volunteering organisation '2 way development' PDF of thesis
Dr. Stephen Wearing
School of Leisure, sport & tourism, University of Technology Sydney
Dr Wearing has research interests in ecotourism. volunteer-tourism and environmentalism, he has written the book 'Volunteer-Tourism: Experiences that make a difference' (see annotated bibliography)The Santa Elena Project, PDF paper