Lyudmila Nurse

Lyudmila Nurse is an Honorary Research Fellow. A sociologist with over 30 years’ experience of research in education, culture, identities, and international social and policy development consultancy work. Dr Lyudmila Nurse’s research include international comparative studies of social mobility and education, identities and belonging, comparative inter-generational studies of identities, ethnic minorities and migrants, parenting, well-being of families with children and young people, application of advanced methods of qualitative, biographical, mixed methods and arts-based research.

She was Research Fellow and Co-Investigator at the Department of Education and previously held post-doctoral and visiting fellowships at universities of Edinburgh, Warwick, City (London) and was an Honorary Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. She also has extensive expertise in European comparative research and development consultancy in social and youth policy of countries of Eastern Europe.  She is a co-editor of the Policy Press (Bristol) book series: Advances in Biographical Research. She is a co-founder and a research director of the Oxford XXI think tank. Lyudmila is currently Coordinator/Chair of the Research Network 03 ‘Biographical Perspectives on European Societies’ of the European Sociological Association (ESA), a member of the ESA Council of Research Networks and of the Cultural, Scientific and Medical Advisory Board of Music Mind Spirit Trust.

At the Department of Education she works in collaboration with Dr Ian Thompson and Professor Harry Daniels associating with the Socio-Cultural and Activity Theory Group.  She was a Co-Investigator in AHRC-funded project Cultural Artefacts and Belonging: A comparative case study of displaced and refugee young people and families in Ukraine led by the Department of Education (2021-2022). In 2017-2019 as Research fellow in the Department of Education she worked with Professor Edward Melhuish and Professor Jaqueline Barnes in the EC H2020 project: Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society (ISOTIS) in which she led a comparative qualitative study of mothers with pre-school and primary school children from low-income families in two metropolitan areas of England: Greater London and North West England. She also coordinated comparative qualitative study of mothers from low-income families, families with immigrant background and ethnic minority background in ten EU countries: Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Portugal.

Research interests are:

• Theoretical approaches to cultural identities and belonging
• Social mobility and inclusive education
• Migration studies (educational migration; forced migration)
• Individual and families’ strategies in tackling impact of inequalities
• Parenting cultures
• Cultural identities and music
• Advanced qualitative, biographical, ethnographic and art-based methods

Publications

Books

• Nurse, L., Moran, L. and Sidiropulu-Janku, K. (editors) (forthcoming 2023) Biographical Research and the Meanings of Mothering: Life Choices, Identities and Methods. Bristol: Policy Press

 Journal Special Issues:

• Guest co-editor with Professor Edward Melhuish of the Special Issue: Comparative Perspectives on Educational Inequalities in Europe of the Contemporary Social Science, Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences (2021)  Volume 16, Issue 4 (2021), 417-522.? https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsoc21/16/4?nav=tocList

Book chapters:

• Nurse, L., Sidiropulu-Janku, K., Obrovska, J., Gajek, K., & J.Mbiatong. (2022)

The place of religious and non-religious values and beliefs in identities of mothers of young children: Methodological approach and empirical evidence from the European countries. In: Kuusisto, A. (editor): The Routledge International Handbook of the Place of Religion in Early Childhood Education. Routledge

• Nurse, L. and Robertson, C. (2021) The Art of Communication in the Socially Distanced Environment. In: Brown, A., Carbon, F., Chambers, B., Coomes, M., Coudenys, W., Rogers, J., Weyer, D. and M. Wilson (editors) Re-Imagining the Tower of Babel. Luxembourg: University of Luxembourg, pp 137-141.
• Nurse, L. (2020). Construction of Schooling Time as Part of Mothers’ Identities. In: Schilling and O’Neill (eds). Frontiers in Time Research-Einfuhrung in die interdisziplinare Zeitforschung. Springer VS, 287-310. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-31252-7_13
• Nurse, L, & O’Neill, M (two editions: 2018, 2019). Biographical Research in the UK: profiles and perspectives in: Lutz, H., Schiebel, M. and E. Tuider (editors) Handbuch Biographieforschung. Springer VS.
• Nurse, L., (2013). Biographical approach in the Study of Identities of Ethnic Minorities in Eastern Europe. In: Mrozowicki, A. and Turk, J.D. (editors) Realist Biography and European policy: An Innovative Approach to European Policy Studies. Leuven: Leuven University Press, Belgium.
• Nurse, L.& E.Sik (2011) Identity and music. Identity of place and cultural identities of generations. In: Axford, B. and Huggins, R. ( editors) Cultures and/of globalisation, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 171-201

Peer reviewed journal articles:

• Nurse, L. and Robertson, C. (forthcoming 2022) Hearing and Feeling the Music in Every Step: Musical Walks and Biographical Experience of Lockdown. Irish Journal of Sociology
• Nurse, L. and Melhuish, E. (2021). Comparative perspectives on educational inequalities in Europe: an overview of the old and emergent inequalities from a bottom-up perspective in: Contemporary Social Science,  Volume 16, 2021 – Issue 4, 417-431.   https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2021.1948095
• Nurse, L. (2016). Identities and a sense of belonging: young Lithuanians and Latvians from ethnic minorities. INTER., Vol., No 12, pp 21-33. http://jour.isras.ru/index.php/inter/article/view/4009
• Nurse, L., Gibson, A., and Surányi, R. (2016).  Media Consumption and Self-Identification: Hungarian and Slovak case study, in: Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Volume 23, Number 6, pp. 705-724.
• Nurse, L., Sik, E. (2012). Zene és identitás, in: Pro Minoritate, 2012 tél., Budapest, pp. 3-39 (In Hungarian)
• Nurse, L (2012). A zene szerepe a magyarországi szlovákok etnikai identitásában in: Pro Minoritate, 2012 tél., Budapest, pp.40-57 (In Hungarian)
• Nurse, L. (2011). Music in the identities of Ethnic Slovaks in Hungary. In: Slovak Journal of Political Sciences, Volume 11,No3, pp. 249-266, Trnava: The Institute of Social Sciences, University of SS Cyril and Methodius.

International reports:

• Broekhuizen, M., Wolf, K., Francot, R., Moser, T., Pastori, G., Nurse, L., Melhuish, E. & P. Leseman (2019) (Editors).  Resources, experiences, and support needs of families in disadvantaged communities.INTEGRATIVE REPORT D 2.5 https://www.isotis.org/en/publications/resources-experiences-and-support-needs-of-families-in-  disadvantaged-communities
• United Nations World Youth Report, 2003.  Consultant.
• Breen, P. J., Shionnemann, M-E., L. Nurse,L.,  Azzopardi,A.,  Lagree, J-C.& P. Lauritzen (2003) Youth Policy in Lithuania. Report by an international group of experts appointed by the Council of Europe. Council of Europe Publishing
• Helsingius, U., du Bois-Reymond, M., Nurse, L., Chan, V., Machado Pais, J. &  D. Trestieni Ion. (2001) Youth Policy in Romania. Report by an international groups of Experts appointed by the Council of Europe. Council of Europe Publishing.