Sociology
BA (Hons) Sociology offers exciting opportunities for you to study the cutting-edge discipline of sociology in the vibrant city of Manchester. It is aimed at students who want to understand and analys…
Dr Helene Snee
Senior Lecturer
[Staff name] on [Social-Platform]
My profile
Biography
Originally from Yorkshire, I have lived in Manchester since coming to university in 1998 and the city is my adopted hometown. Sociology is not simply a job for me; I am ‘a Sociologist’ and it is part of my identity. My passion for the discipline comes from its potential to help us understand and challenge social inequalities. This has driven my research interests, which focuses on social class and its intersections. I am an advocate of collaborative research and a member of the ‘Res-Sisters’ feminist collective.
On a personal level, I love music, contemporary novels and cheesy horror films. I also enjoy yoga and travelling to diverse places; New York, Tuscany and the Orkney Islands are some recent favourites.
What I do
Interests and expertise
Cultural class analysis
Critical perspectives on social mobility and gender
Youth and education
New media research / digital social research
Cosmopolitanism
Projects
My current project, ‘Learning to care in unprecedented times: the Impact of Covid-19 on nursing education’ aims to make recommendations for the NHS and university Schools of Nursing.
The project offers insights into how the pandemic has affected learning and employment opportunities for student nurses. The study has identified the support that both current and future nursing students may need.
It also highlights how the pandemic has made long-standing issues more urgent, such as the workforce shortages, nurses’ working conditions and concerns over their professional status.
The project offers insights into students’ experiences. It draws on wider concerns for the sociology of education, including social mobility and widening participation policy. This research was supported by The British Academy [grant number COV19\201055].
https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/research-centres/projects/covid-impact-nursing-education
Future research aims to expand these themes to consider the role of class, gender and intersecting inequalities on educational pathways and career trajectories of other caring professions.
Teaching
Why do I teach?
I remember very clearly learning about the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu when I was a second year undergraduate. His work on the role of culture in reproducing inequality encapsulates everything I love about Sociology: the pulling apart of what is taken-for-granted. I call this my ‘lightbulb moment’ when my ‘sociological imagination’ was captured and I could reflect on both my own experiences and wider social life in a new and exciting way. I teach Sociology because I want to spark these lightbulb moments in others, to encourage students to look at the world around them differently, and hopefully change it for the better.
How I’ll teach you
My teaching method is to balance critical pedagogy, which challenges how students see the world and act to change it, with a student-led, active approach. I’ll prompt you to leave ‘common-sense’ understandings of the social world behind by introducing you to sociological perspectives and research, and then guide you to develop your own ideas based on critique and evaluation. Reading is absolutely critical for studying sociology, so I’ll encourage you to read widely, but it’s also a practical discipline. Rather than tell students everything about a topic, my aim is to equip you with the empirical, theoretical and methodological tools to engage with real-life issues as sociologists. I am also working towards deconstructing my reading lists so that they don’t only feature the work of ‘old white men’ and instead promote diverse voices including working class, Black and feminist scholars.
Criminology and Sociology
BA (Hons) Criminology and Sociology offers the exciting opportunity to combine the study of two cutting-edge disciplines in the vibrant city of Manchester.
The course is aimed at students who are int…
Criminology
BA (Hons) Criminology offers an exciting opportunity to study the cutting-edge discipline of criminology in the vibrant city of Manchester. It is aimed at students who want to study crime from a criti…
Supervision
Current PhD Students (as second supervisor):
Liz Cain: Assessing the value and impact of engaged learning models
Sophie Harris: A cross-cultural study on factors that affect the purpose and effectiveness of the mathematical methods of teaching and curriculum in Singapore and England.
Yvonne Norris: Sober social communities and platforms: The role of online sobriety communities among female non-problematic drinkers
I would be interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:
- Social class (particularly with regards to culture, consumption and identity)
- Youth transitions
- Social mobility
- Education and inequalities
Research outputs
-
Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Savage, M., Cunningham, N., Devine, F., Friedman, S., Laurison, D., McKenzie, L., Miles, A., Snee, H., Wakeling, P. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. Pelican Books.
Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., Watson, H. (2015) Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Snee, H. (2014) A cosmopolitan journey? Difference, distinction and identity work in gap year travel.
-
Chapters in books
The Res-Sisters, 'I'm an early career feminist academic : get me out of here?..' In Thwaites, R., Godoy-Pressland., A. (ed.) Feminist Beginnings: Being an Early Career Feminist Academic in a Changing Academy. Palgrave Macmillan,
Hookway, N., Snee, H. (2019) 'Blogs in social research.' Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences. pp. 1353-1368.
Ingram, N., The Resisters, , Snee, H. (2018) 'Mobilising a Feminist Manifesta: Critical reflections on challenging and being challenged in the neoliberal academy.' Strategies for Resisting Sexism in the Academy Higher Education, Gender and Intersectionality. Springer,
Cunningham, N., Snee, H., Devine, F. (2017) '‘A Classless Society?’ Making Sense of Inequalities in the Contemporary UK with the Great British Class Survey.' Inequalities in the UK New Discourses, Evolutions and Actions. Emerald Group Publishing,
Hookway, N., Snee, H. (2017) 'The Blogosphere.' Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods.
Snee, H., Devine, F. (2015) 'Young People's Transitions to Employment: Making Choices, Negotiating Constraints.' Handbook of Children and Youth Studies. Dordrecht,
Snee, H. (2011) 'Youth Research in Web 2.0: A Case Study in Blog Analysis.' Innovations in Youth Research. Palgrave Macmillan,
-
Reports
Snee, H. The impact of Covid 19 on nursing education: Learning to care in unprecedented times.
-
Internet publications
Snee, H.L. (2015) 'Mind the Gap Year', Discover Society Issue 22.. http://discoversociety.org/2015/07/01/mind-the-gap-year/.
-
Journal articles
Snee, H., Goswami, H. (2021) 'Who Cares? Social mobility and the ‘class ceiling’ in nursing.' Sociological Research Online, 26(3) pp. 562-580.
Snee, H., White, P., Cox, N. (2021) ''Creating a modern nursing workforce’: nursing education reform in the neoliberal social imaginary.' British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(2) pp. 229-244.
Snee, H., Devine, F. (2018) 'Fair chances and hard work? Families making sense of inequality and opportunity in 21st-century Britain.' British Journal of Sociology, 69(4) pp. 1134-1154.
Devine, F., Snee, H. (2015) 'Doing the Great British Class Survey.' Sociological Review, 63(2) pp. 240-258.
Snee, H., Devine, F. (2014) 'Taking the next step: class, resources and educational choice across the generations.' Journal of Youth Studies, 17
Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Friedman, S., Laurison, D., Miles, A., Snee, H., Taylor, M. (2014) 'On Social Class, Anno 2014.' Sociology,
Snee, H. (2013) 'Making Ethical Decisions in an Online context: Reflections on using blogs to explore narratives of experience.' Methodological Innovations Online, 18
Snee, H. (2013) 'Doing something 'worthwhile': intersubjectivity and morality in gap year narratives.' Sociological Review, 62
Snee, H. (2013) 'Framing the Other: cosmopolitanism and the representation of difference in overseas gap year narratives.' British Journal of Sociology, 64
Procter, R., Williams, R., Stewart, J., Poschen, M., Snee, H., Voss, A., Asgari-Targhi, M. (2010) 'Adoption and use of Web 2.0 in scholarly communications.' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 368(1926) pp. 4039-4056.
-
Other
Snee, H. (2014) Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty.
Snee, H. (2014) Volunteer tourism and the ‘cosmopolitan’ gap year.
Career history
2001
Graduated from University of Manchester with BA(Econ)(Hons) Sociology
2010
Awarded PhD Sociology from University of Manchester
2010 - 2014
Worked in the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester as Lecturer and Research Associate.
2014
Joined Manchester Met as Lecturer in Sociology
2015
My book A Cosmopolitan Journey? Difference, distinction and identity work in gap year travel was shortlisted for the 2015 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize for best first and sole-authored book in Sociology.
2016
Promoted to Senior Lecturer
2020
Awarded first grant as Principal Investigator for ‘Learning to care in unprecedented times: the Impact of Covid-19 on Nursing Education’ (funded by the British Academy)