Jess Pilgrim-Brown

Research Fellow

Jessica.pilgrim-brown@education.ox.ac.uk

@jessbrown_UK

LinkedIn Profile

About me

Dr Jess Pilgrim-Brown is a Sociologist and Researcher in the field of Higher Education. She is particularly interested in cycles of inequality, inequity and issues to relating to social justice in the academy.

She currently works as a Research Fellow and Departmental Lecturer (MSc Higher Education) in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research publications to date focus on the experiences of working-class professional services staff, inequalities within education research in the UK and the ethics of care for researchers in higher education research. She is also a Bryan Warren Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College (2026-2028).

Research

Books

Pilgrim-Brown, J., Crew, T., & Attridge, É. (2025). Working-Class People in UK Higher Education: Precarities, Perspectives and Progress (pp. 1-305). Emerald Publishing Limited.

https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83662-062-4
Pilgrim-Brown, J., Crew, T., & Attridge, É. (Eds.). (2025). Working-Class People in UK Higher Education. Emerald Publishing Limited.

https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83662-062-4

Book chapters

Kitby, T., McWilliams, C., Pilgrim-Brown, J., Guerrina, R., & Jordan, F. (2026). AI and cloud data collection as tools for mixed methods research: a case study on gender in young children’s storybooks. In Handbook of Mixed Methods Research in Education (pp. 406-422). Edward Elgar Publishing.

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035326785.00034
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2026). Performing care work as subversive collective action. In A Modern Guide to Education, Gender and Sexuality (pp. 193-215). Edward Elgar Publishing.

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035329038.00018
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2026). Performing care work as subversive collective action: The contributions of working-class professional services and administrative staff in UK Higher Education. In A Modern Guide to Education Gender and Sexuality (pp. 193-215). Edward Elgar Publishing.

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035329038.00018
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2025). ‘Prioritising the Building, not the People in It’: The Void of Evidence in Inclusive Research, Policy and Practice in UK Higher Education. In Working-Class People in UK Higher Education (pp. 223-239). Emerald Publishing Limited.

https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83662-062-420251024
Pilgrim-Brown, J., Crew, T., & Attridge, É. (2025). Introduction. In Working-Class People in UK Higher Education (pp. 1-6). Emerald Publishing Limited.

https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83662-062-420251001

Journal articles

Pilgrim-Brown, J., Chen, L., Kedia, V., Lin, J., Ma, Y., Ma, Y., Montero, M., Oancea, A., Shi, A., Wang, X., Xu, X., & Yu, K. (2026). Rethinking research-on-research in higher education studies. Studies in Higher Education, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-14.

https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2026.2710343
Huxford, G., & Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2026). Are there any wives like me? The meanings of family in British military communities during the 1990s. Critical Military Studies, 1-16.

https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2026.2701498
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2026). Who cares about academic welfare in empirical data collection? Exploring the deficit in personal and psychological care for researchers in research ethics processes. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 30(2), 122-127.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2024.2414084
Pilgrim-Brown, J., Morris, R., Smith, E., & Perry, T. (2026). ‘Inhabiting uncertain terrain’: inequalities of access, experience, and outcomes for university education researchers in the UK. Research Papers in Education, 41(2), 206-235.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2025.2568628
Smith, E., Gorard, S., Morris, R., Perry, T., & Pilgrim‐Brown, J. (2025). Then and now: Twenty years of education research methods use in the United Kingdom. British Educational Research Journal, 51(5), 2426-2449.

https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.4179
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2024). ‘Helping academics shine’: An exploration into the relationships working-class professional services staff have with others in UK higher education. Higher Education, 90(2), 387-405.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01328-5
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2024). Where Have All the Women Gone? An Analysis of Women’s Voices in the British Military in Current Academic Literature. Question Journal, 8.

https://doi.org/10.52715/pilg0001
Pilgrim-Brown, J. (2023). What does it mean to be working class? Exploring the definition of a social class identity through the eyes of working-class professional services and administrative staff in Russell Group universities. Journal of Working-Class Studies, 8(2), 51-68.

https://doi.org/10.13001/jwcs.v8i2.8401
Chalmers, H., Brown, J., & Koryakina, A. (2023). Topics, publication patterns, and reporting quality in systematic reviews in language education. Lessons from the International Database of Education Systematic Reviews (IDESR). Applied Linguistics Review.

https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2022-0190

Research Projects

Investigating Research Culture through Personal Interactions: Relationships between research professionals and academics at the University of Oxford

Role: Principal Investigator

Funder: John Fell Fund

Date: 2026-2026

Research Professional Futures (RPF)

Funder: Research England (RED fund)

Date: 2026-2029

Diverse Contributions to Educational Research

Role: Postdoctoral Researcher

Funder: Research Culture Project Fund (Department of Education, University of Oxford)

Date: 2024-2025