University of Nottingham

Graduate Student, School of Politics and International Relations

Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice

Thesis Title: Stuck in the middle with youth: Youth work, policy and meso-politics in Britain. An ethnographic study of youth clubs in Nottingham.

About

Deirdre Duffy is a PhD student at the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Her PhD critically examines the discourses underlying the practice of youth work in Britain. Combining Michael Lipsky’s theory of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ with the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler on power relations, the study explores the tensions embedded within youth work as a form of ‘meso’ – or ‘street-level’ – politics within youth policy.

Deirdre has a First Class Honours degree in European Integration Studies and Italian from University College Cork as well as as MSc Econ in Terrorism and International Relations from Aberystwyth University. She was also a visiting student at the Facolta' di Scienze Politiche at the Universita' degli Studi de Siena.

Deirdre has worked as a Research Associate at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (Sheffield Hallam University) and an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Public and Social Policy (University of Nottingham). She has conducted research on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Housing Corporation and the European Commission.

Her primary interests include youth work and policy, meso-politics, the use of ethnographic research methods, post-structuralist feminism and the work of Michel Foucault. 

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