Dr Zoe Baker
BA (hons), MA, PhD, FHEA
School of Education
Lecturer in Education
Full contact details
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Zoe is a Lecturer in Education. She has been researching issues of inequality and social justice in the field of higher education for over ten years. During this time, she has undertaken research roles in academia and the private sector, and has completed commissioned research for the third sector.
Zoe's work explores inequalities in higher education access, progression and outcomes (including equitable access to graduate employment) for care-experienced people. Through her work, she has made a number of recommendations for local authorities, higher education institutions, policymakers, and employers which aim to achieve equity in opportunities for care-experienced people. She has also provided evidence from her research to APPG roundtables, Select Committees, and was also consulted as part of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. Outside of her research and teaching activities, Zoe volunteers as an Independent Visitor for children and young people in care with Sheffield City Council’s children's social care services.
- Research interests
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Zoe's research interests are educational inequalities, higher education, social justice, and the sociology of education. As a sociologist of education, her work pays attention to how structural constraints and enablements shape access to and engagement with education. She also explores how individuals' intersectional membership of multiple groups can result in additive forms of disadvantage, and how these affect access to educational opportunities. To explore these issues, Zoe uses creative research methods to capture the lived experiences of participants; her past work has used written and audio diaries, photo-elicitation interviews, and social media to facilitate narrative expression.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Theorising educational engagement, transitions and outcomes for care‐experienced people: Introduction to the special issue. British Educational Research Journal, 50(2), 455-460.
- A praxis-based perspective on supporting care-experienced students to thrive in higher education using the capabilities approach. European Journal of Higher Education. View this article in WRRO
- Young people engaging in event-based diaries: A reflection on the value of diary methods in higher education decision-making research. Qualitative Research, 23(3), 686-705.
- Patterns of postgraduate transitions amongst care-experienced graduates in the United Kingdom. Cambridge Journal of Education, 52(3), 349-368.
- Employment and further study outcomes for care-experienced graduates in the UK. Higher Education, 83(2), 357-378. View this article in WRRO
- The vocational/academic divide in widening participation: the higher education decision making of further education students. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44(6), 766-780.
- Priced out: the renegotiation of aspirations and individualized HE ‘choices’ in England.. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 28(3-4), 299-325.
- Reflexivity, structure and agency: using reflexivity to understand Further Education students’ Higher Education decision-making and choices. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(1), 1-16.
- Hubert Ertl and Claire Dupuy (eds), Students, markets and social justice: Higher education fee and student support policies in Western Europe and beyond. Power and Education, 8(1), 106-108.
- Facing the cliff-edge: care-experienced graduates’ access to and progression through taught postgraduate study in the United Kingdom. Higher Education.
Chapters
- Reactivity, rationality, emotion and self-protection: Critical reflections on the use and potential of diaries in Higher Education choice and decision-making research. In Henderson E & Cao X (Ed.), Exploring Diary Methods in Higher Education Research Opportunities, Choices and Challenges Routledge
- Understanding and Developing Student Engagement In Bryson C (Ed.) Routledge
Reports
- The Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations Project: Phase three report
- The Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations Project: Phase two report
- The Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations Project: Phase one report.
- Positive impact? What factors affect access, retention and graduate outcomes for university students with a background of care or family estrangement?
- Theorising educational engagement, transitions and outcomes for care‐experienced people: Introduction to the special issue. British Educational Research Journal, 50(2), 455-460.
- Grants
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Care-experienced graduates' decision-making, choices, and destinations: How does a background of care affect graduate transitions? - Funded by the British Academy (2021–24).
Positive impact? What factors affect access, retention and graduate outcomes for university students with a background of care or family estrangement? - Funded by The Unite Foundation (2018-2020) with Professor Jacqueline Stevenson (University of Leeds), Dr Neil Harrison (University of Oxford), Dr Becca Bland (Stand Alone Charity) and Stella Jones-Devitt (Staffordshire University).
- Teaching interests
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Zoe teaches and supervises students on the following programmes: BA Education, Culture and Childhood; the MA Education; the Sheffield EdD and the PhD.
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Editor, British Journal of Sociology of Education.
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
- Member of the Emotionally Demanding Research Network.
Media appearances and contributions