Wolfson Fellow
Dr Vikki Boliver
(email at vikki.boliver@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
Vikki joined the School of Applied Social Sciences in September 2011. Before coming to Durham, Vikki studied Sociology at Leicester University (BA), Cambridge University (MPhil) and Oxford University (DPhil) and was a Departmental Lecturer in Sociology at Oxford, a Nuffield Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Harvard, a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford, and a Sociology Lecturer at Bath Spa. At Durham Vikki teaches the first year undergraduate research methods module, Introduction to Research, and the masters level module, Quantitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences.
Vikki’s current research focuses on social inequalities of access to higher status universities, and on patterns and processes of social mobility across multiple generations. She welcomes enquiries about supervision from students who want to write an undergraduate, masters or doctoral dissertation on something to do with educational inequality or social mobility, or who are keen to use quantitative research methods, or who simply have a sociologically interesting research question that they're itching to investigate.
Supervisees
- Laura Chilintan
- Miriam Abrahams
- Amber Whittle
- Olivia Pearce
- Oliver Clarke
- Michael Cook
Research Groups
School of Applied Social Sciences
- Policy, Professions and Communities
- Sociology and Social Policy
Research Projects
School of Applied Social Sciences
- The impact of a market in tuition fees on fair access to more prestigious universities and subjects
Research Interests
- Educational inequalities, especially social class and ethnic inequalities of access to higher status universities
- Social stratification and mobility, in particular patterns and processes of social mobility across multiple generations of family members
- Quantitative research methods
- Applied and policy-relevant research
Teaching Areas
Introduction to Research
Quantitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences
Societies in Transition
Publications
Articles: magazine
- Boliver, Vikki & Swift, Adam (2012). Schools and social mobility. Sociology Review 22(2).
Books: sections
- Waters, M., Heath, A., Butterfield, S., Boliver, V. & Gonzalez, M. (2012). The educational careers of the children of immigrants in Britain and the USA. In The Integration Imperative: The Children of Third-World Immigrants in the Schools of the U.S. and Western Europe. Alba, R. & Holdaway, J. CUNY, New York.
Conference papers
- Boliver, V. (2011), Qualitative inequalities in further and higher education in England, International Sociological Association RC28 Conference, August 2011. Iowa City, USA.
Departmental working papers
- Chan, T. & Boliver, V. (2011). Social mobility over three generations in Britain. Sociology Department Working Paper, Oxford University 2011-04.
- Boliver, V. (2010). Maximally maintained inequality and effectively maintained inequality in education: operationalizing the expansion-inequality relationship. Sociology Department Working Paper, Oxford University 2010-05.
- Boliver, V. (2006). Social inequalities of access to higher status universities in the UK: the role of university admissions decisions. Sociology Department Working Paper, Oxford University 2006-07.
- Boliver, V. (2004). Widening participation and fair access at the University of Oxford. Sociology Department Working Paper, Oxford University 2004-02.
Journal papers: academic
- Sullivan, A., Heath, A., Zimdars, A. & Boliver, V. (2013). Education Under New Labour, 1997-2010. Oxford Review of Economic Policy
- Boliver, V. (2013). How fair is access to more prestigious UK Universities?. British Journal of Sociology 64(2).
- Chan, T. W. & Boliver, V. (2013). Social Mobility Over Three Generations in Finland: A Critique. European Sociological Review
- Chan, Tak Wing & Boliver, Vikki (2013). The grandparent effect in social mobility: evidence from British birth cohort studies. American Sociological Review
- Boliver, V. & Swift, A. (2011). Do comprehensive schools reduce social mobility?. The British Journal of Sociology 62(1): 89-110.
- Boliver, V. (2011). Expansion, differentiation, and the persistence of social class inequalities in British higher education. Higher Education 61(3): 229-242.
Journal papers: popular
- Boliver, V. & Swift, A. (2011). Comprehensive schools and social mobility. Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy 19(2): 32-36.