Attended University of Newcastle and LSE before teaching at Durham 1970-74.
Research Director North Tyneside Community Development Project 1974-77. Reader in Sociology Ulster Polytechnic 1977-80. Since at University of Durham and now Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Applied Social Science.
My research and teaching interests straddle social inequality and the methodological programme of the Social Sciences. I am a firm adherent of interdisciplinary approaches – even I might say of post-disciplinary work. Since the 1990s I have been engaged with the Complexity Frame of Reference as a basis for thinking about, researching AND acting within and on complex social systems. I have a special interest in the role of case based methods for exploring complex causation.
Relevant publications include these books:
Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: the state of the art (second edition 2023) London: Routledge
Coping with inequality in a context of climate crisis and after COVID (2021) London: Routledge
Class after Industry: A complex realist approach (2019) Palgrave Macmillan
With Sally Ruane Paying for the Social Services in the 21st Century Bristol: Policy Press 2017
(with Gill Callaghan) Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: the state of the art London: Routledge 2014
Cluster Analysis 4 volumes (edited with E. Uprichard) Sage: London 2012
Applying Social Science Bristol: Policy Press 2011
Sage Handbook of Case Based Methods (edited with Charles Ragin) London: Sage 2009
Social Exclusion (Key Concepts in Sociology series) 3 volumes (edited) London: Routledge 2008
Social Exclusion (second edition) Buckingham: 2005
Interpreting Quantitative Data London: Sage 2002
Understanding the Urban London: Palgrave (Macmillan): 2001
Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences London: Routledge 1998
Beyond the Inner City Open University Press 1989
