Qualifications

B.Ed, MSC (Econ.), PhD

Profile

A sociologist working within the School of Education and primarily interested in informal education delivered by or in partnership with the ‘Third Sector’.

Research and Projects Interests

Gill Cressey is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests include informal education, youth, community development, diaspora experiences, migration, trans-nationalism and neighbourhoods, Muslims in Britain and Europe, and policy and practice responses to all of these by voluntary and governmental organisations. As a member of MOSAIC (see below) she also contributes to research on multilingualism.

She supervises undergraduate, Masters and PhD student research in all of these fields and more generally in the area of Equal Opportunities. Her research methodologies of preference are all qualitative: narrative study of lives, life histories, new ethnography and case studies.

MOSAIC

(The Centre for Research on Multilingualism of/within Social and Institutional Contexts) is a newly constituted Research Centre within the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. It provides a forum for the development of new, interdisciplinary lines of enquiry related to bilingualism/multilingualism, multilingual literacy, bilingual education, second language learning and contemporary discourses about linguistic and cultural diversity. Centre members are engaged in externally funded research which draws on different, inter-related strands of critical, social linguistics and on social theory, including linguistic ethnography, critical discourse analysis, new literacy studies and multimodal social semiotics.

Other relevant professional experience

She is a qualified Community and Youth worker with twenty year’s experience of practice.

Active member of Board of Directors of Muslim Youth Work Foundation 2006-present.

Co-organiser of National Conference on Muslim Youth Work, Birmingham December 2005 and follow up national conference ‘Conversations and Actions’ March 2006 in Bradford, each attended by 250 + delegates- young people, academics, youth workers and policy makers.

Teaching Interests

Teaching this year includes modules on Action Research, Community Work, Identity and Culture, Group Work and Reflective Practice. I have regularly taught on the MA in Youth and Community Work, Social Action Research  (B.Phil and MA modules) . I have also taught on a number of other School of Education programmes including BA in Race and Ethnic Studies, BA (Hons) Sports Education and Community Studies and Research Methods for Education (for all MPhil, PhD and Ed D students of the School of Education) and on a programme called Certificate in User Research and Evaluation.

Publications (selected)

Cressey, GR. (2008) No Spare Rib: supporting Muslim Young Women’s Agency. Scottish Youth Issues journal ,11: 53-63. ISSN 1469-0780.

Cressey, GR. (2007) 'Our Streets of England': Some translocal British Young People relationship with their Birmingham, Global Built Environment Review. 6 (2): 38-52. ISSN 1474-6832

Cressey, GR. (2006) Diaspora Youth and Ancestral Homeland: British Pakistani/Kashmiri Youth Visiting Kin in Pakistan and Kashmir, Leiden, the Netherlands, ISBN: 9004153462.

Cressey, GR. (2006) Muslim Girlswork: the Ultimate Separatist Cage? Youth and Policy, 92: 33-46. ISSN: 0262-9798.

Thomas, HR.,  Martin, G., Hicks, JP., Cressey, GR. (2006) Induction, Transition and Role Preparation in the NHS, Birmingham and Black Country Strategic Health Authority, The University of Birmingham: 49pp, ISBN: 0704425866

Cressey, GR. (2002) Followers of Tradition, Products of Hybridity, or Bearers of Change: British Pakistani and Kashmiri Young People, Sociale Wetenschappen, 45e, 2, Dutch Journal of Social Sciences, 44-60. ISSN: 0037-8097.

Publications 2001 - 2008 [complete, pdf]