Dr Elisabeth Garratt
School of Education
Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods
Programme Director in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
Full contact details
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Understanding homelessness & food poverty - Meet Dr Elisabeth Garrett Beth is an interdisciplinary social scientist, joining the Sheffield Methods Institute as a Lecturer in Quantitative Methods in September 2019. Before this, she was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Investigation, Nuffield College, Oxford. She completed her PhD in Social Statistics at the University of Manchester in 2015, exploring the role of income on mental health in 3-12 year-old British children and their parents. She also holds an MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics (University of Manchester) and a BA in Psychology with Philosophy (University of Oxford).From April 2023, Beth is serving as Principal Investigator on an ESRC-funded project entitled 'Navigating food insecurity and environmental sustainability on a low income: A case study of Sheffield mothers'. The project explores mothers' experiences of day-to-day food provisioning on a low income, incorporating novel considerations about the role played by environmental sustainability practices in everyday food provisioning. This feminist, qualitative research project involves 15 months of longitudinal fieldwork with 15 low-income families in Sheffield, combining in-depth interviews with ethnographic elements. More information about the project is available here.
Beth is also currently writing up findings from an earlier qualitative research project exploring people’s experiences of homelessness in the city of Oxford, where she also served as the Principal Investigator. This project used in-depth interviews and life history mapping to explore people’s housing and homelessness biographies over the lifecourse. Its particular focus is on the long-term causes of homelessness and people's trajectories through different experiences of homelessness over time.Beth holds a PGCert in Teaching for Learning in Higher Education and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
- Research interests
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- Homelessness
- Housing exclusion
- Food insecurity and food poverty
- Emergency food
- Mental health
- Poverty
- Welfare policy
- Quantitative methods
- Qualitative methods
- Publications
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Books
- Social Progress in Britain. Oxford University Press.
Journal articles
- Using Tronto’s care ethics to transform debates about UK emergency food. Social & Cultural Geography. View this article in WRRO
- Food insecurity and food bank use: who is most at risk of severe food insecurity and who uses food banks? – CORRIGENDUM. Public Health Nutrition, 28(1).
- Food insecurity and food bank use: Who is most at risk of severe food insecurity and who uses food banks?. Public Health Nutrition, 27(1). View this article in WRRO
- Navigating household food insecurity and environmental sustainability on a low income: an exploration of Sheffield mothers. Nutrition Bulletin, 49(4), 550-560. View this article in WRRO
- Risk it for a biscuit: food safety behaviours and food insecurity of older adults. Appetite, 203. View this article in WRRO
- Life history mapping : exploring journeys into and through housing and homelessness. Qualitative Research.
- ‘There’s nothing I can do to stop it’ : homelessness among autistic people in a British city. Disability & Society, 1-27.
- Living through continuous displacement : resisting homeless identities and remaking precarious lives. Geoforum, 116, 140-148. View this article in WRRO
- Food insecurity in Europe : who is at risk, and how successful are social benefits in protecting against food insecurity?. Journal of Social Policy, 49(4), 785-809. View this article in WRRO
- Telemedical education during national emergencies : learning from Kashmir. The Clinical Teacher, 17(4), 415-417.
- Food insecurity amongst older people in the UK. British Food Journal, 121(3), 658-674.
- A new poverty measure aims for consensus. Significance, 15(6), 8-8.
- Please sir, I want some more : an exploration of repeat foodbank use. BMC Public Health, 17(1).
- Income and Social Rank Influence UK Children's Behavioral Problems: A Longitudinal Analysis. Child Development, 88(4), 1302-1320.
- Hungry? Food Insecurity, Social Stigma and Embarrassment in the UK. Sociology, 50(6), 1072-1088.
- The interactive role of income (material position) and income rank (psychosocial position) in psychological distress : a 9-year longitudinal study of 30,000 UK parents. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 51(10), 1361-1372.
- Improved Attitudes to Psychiatry: A Global Mental Health Peer-to-Peer E-Learning Partnership. Academic Psychiatry, 40(4), 659-666.
- OP55 Effort-reward imbalance and health: a longitudinal multilevel analysis of parents and their children. Oral Presentations, A33.1-A33.
- Understanding the effect of universal credit on housing insecurity in England: a difference-in-differences approach. Housing Studies, 39(7), 1813-1831. View this article in WRRO
Book chapters
- Life mapping In Barron A, Browne AL, Ehgartner U, Hall SM, Pottinger L & Ritson J (Ed.), Methods for Change: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st century problems (pp. 142-150). Manchester: Aspect & The University of Manchester.. View this article in WRRO
Book reviews
- Book review - Social Housing, Wellbeing and Welfare. People, Place and Policy, 18(1), 59-61. View this article in WRRO
- Book Review: Rebecca O’Connell and Julia Brannen, Families and Food in Hard Times. Sociology, 56(6), 1241-1242.
- The rise of food charity across Europe. Hannah Lambie-Mumford and Tiina Silvasti Bristol: Policy Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781447347583; £26.99 (EPub). Social Policy & Administration, 56(3), 538-539.
Reports
- Homelessness in Oxford : risks and opportunities across housing and homeless transitions View this article in WRRO
- #stillhungry : who is hungry, for how long, and why? View this article in WRRO
- The childhood origins of social mobility : socio-economic inequalities and changing opportunities View this article in WRRO
- Trading places : worklessness dynamics in Greater Manchester View this article in WRRO
- Understanding the worklessness dynamics and characteristics of deprived areas View this article in WRRO
- English indices of deprivation 2010 : technical report View this article in WRRO
- Researching UK food insecurity and foodbank use using a mixed methods approach View this article in WRRO
- Social Progress in Britain. Oxford University Press.
- Teaching activities
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In the 2025-26 academic year, I am teaching on the following modules:
EDC108 - Principles in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (module convenor). This module provides PPE students with an understanding of how the disciplines of politics, philosophy, and economics are interrelated, as well as articulate the reasons why PPE is such an exciting interdisciplinary field of study. The module covers key theories and approaches in politics, philosophy, and economics as well as introducing students to the foundational methods used in the study of PPE. This core module is taken by level 1 undergraduates studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.
EDC206 - Policy Analysis and Programme Evaluation. This module explores the methods of policy analysis and programme evaluation. It covers a range of methods, including (but not limited to) randomised-control trials, methods of causal inference, and qualitative techniques. This core module is taken by level 2 undergraduates studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.
EDC442 - Principles of Research Design (module convenor). This module addresses the foundations of social research: what needs to be established before a research project can be conducted. I am primarily responsible for the second half (spring semester) of this year-long module, which focuses on what actually happens during and after the process of conducting research. In doing so it covers topics including research ethics, sampling and recruitment, collaboration with other researchers, data analysis, and research dissemination. This core module is taken by students studying for an MA in Social Research.
- PhD Supervision
- Rhiannon Williams: Tackling homelessness in the UK: a data analytics approach (with Prof Gwilym Price and Dr Andy Bell). ESRC-funded Data Analytics and Society CDT, in partnership with Shelter, completed 2023
I am interested in supervising enthusiastic and motivated research students in the areas matching my research interests.