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Tracy Shildrick

T:: 01642 384047
Job title:: Professor
E:: t.a.shildrick@tees.ac.uk
School/department:: School of Social Sciences & Law

Research institute:: Social Futures Institute

About Tracy Shildrick

Tracy Shildrick
Professor, School of Social Sciences & Law
T: 01642 384047
E: t.a.shildrick@tees.ac.uk
Research institute: Social Futures Institute

Professor Tracy Shildrick’s research interests include young people and social exclusion, youth transitions, youth culture and sub-culture, youth crime, illicit drug use, social class analysis and qualitative methodologies.

Tracy would welcome applications from PhD candidates in any of the following areas:

• Youth culture
• Youth Transitions
• Poverty
• Social Exclusion
• Worklessness
• Welfare
• Social class and inequality

Publications

View Professor Tracy Shildrick's publications on TeesRep

In the news

Poverty: Myths & Reality
The Exeter Daily (Web), 09/05/2013
Let’s check out some of the myths. There are hundreds of families where their members have been idle for generations. Teesside University surveyed 330 families in the poorest areas of Middlesbrough and Glasgow. Only one family had seen three generations unemployed.
Government's assault on benefits hits workers too
Salisbury Journal (Web), 18/04/2013; Salisbury Journal, 18/04/2013, p.29, Forest Journal, 18/04/2013, p.29
Research by economist David Blanchflower reveals that while unemployment has not exploded as was feared after the crash, there has been a ballooning of underemployment with an increase in part time and insecure jobs. And work by Robert MacDonald and Tracy Shildrick, professors of sociology at the University of Teesside, shows that despite this phenomenon most people demonstrate a strong work ethic.
Government using increasingly loaded language in welfare debate
The Guardian (Web); 5/4/2013
The government is increasingly using value-laden and pejorative language when discussing benefits and welfare, a Guardian analysis has found, something poverty charities warn is likely to increase the stigmatisation of poor people.
Benefit attitudes
Evening Gazette, 25/03/2013, p.18
A recent study from Teesside University dispelled that myth when academics were unable to find families with three generations in which no-one had ever worked.
Dower of the people
New Statesman, 22/03/2013, p.10; New Statesman, 22/03/2013, p.4; New Statesman, 22/03/2013, p.20
Studies recently concluded by Teesside University of 300 families in the poorest areas of Middlesbrough and Glasgow found only one family that had had three generations of unemployed.
Prof speaks out
Evening Gazette, 24/01/2013, p.16
A Teesside University professor whose study showed the "myth" of three generations of families living on benefits will take her research to Northern Ireland this month.
The new 'precariat': living on the edge in unstable Britain
Ekklesia (Web), 13/01/2013
About the authors: Tracy Shildrick is a Professor of Sociology at Teesside University. She has researched and written widely around issues to do with young people, poverty and worklessness. Robert MacDonald is Professor of Sociology at Teesside University. He has long-standing research interests in the areas of youth transitions, social exclusion and unemployment.
Tales of jobless families 'untrue'
Evening Gazette (Teesside), 31/12/2012, p.9
The idea that children, parents and grandparents live a life on benefits in is untrue according to a new study by Teesside professors. A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation asked whether there really are "three generations of families who have never worked" and whether unemployment in families could be explained by a "culture of worklessness". Professors Rob MacDonald and Tracy Shildrick from Teesside University helped with the study and fieldwork with families in Middlesbrough.
Teesside/Glasgow Generational joblessness 'a myth'
The Times Higher Education Supplement, 20/12/2012, p.14
Researchers from Teesside University and the University of Glasgow carried out intensive fieldwork in Middlesbrough and Glasgow but were unable to find any such examples of extreme welfare dependence.
Campus round-up
Times Higher Education Supplement (Web), 20/12/2012
The idea that there are families in the UK with three generations that have never worked has been questioned by a study. Researchers from Teesside University and the University of Glasgow carried out intensive fieldwork in Middlesbrough and Glasgow but were unable to find any such examples of extreme welfare dependence.
Second thoughts
The Guardian, 19/12/2012, p.34; guardian.co.uk (Web), 19/12/2012
Tracy Shildrick is sociology professor at Teesside University. She is co-author, with Robert MacDonald, Colin Webster and Kayleigh Garthwaite, of Poverty and Insecurity: life in low-pay, no-pay Britain. policypress.co.uk
Exposed: the myth of a 'culture of worklessness' | Robert Macdonald and Tracy Shildrick
guardian.co.uk (Web), 14/12/2012; BBC Radio Scotland, Good Morning Scotland, 15/12/2012, 09:31:09
Extensive research shows that families experiencing long-term unemployment remain committed to the value of work Stories about the real extent and problem of worklessness are finally making headlines, jostling with those about "welfare scroungers" and "shirkers" and "strivers".
Exposing the mythologies of the workless
The Policy Press (Web), 17/12/2012
Read the article
City families help to dispel non-work myths
Evening Times, 13/12/2012, p.6; Daily Record, 13/12/2012, p.6; Northern Housing (Web), 13/12/2012; DailyRecord.co.uk (Web), 13/12/2012; Financial Times (Web), 13/12/2012; Herald Scotland (Web), 13/12/2012
The idea that worklessness is passed from generation to generation in some families has been challenged in a report published today by researchers from Glasgow University and Teesside University, Middlesbrough. The report sought to discover whether joblessness and dependence on benefits becomes a way of life among grandparents, parents and children.
Myth over generations of 'workless families'
Northern Echo, 13/12/2012, p.16; The Herald, 13/12/2012, p.5; The Independent (Web), 13/12/2012
The report - based on extensive research in Middlesbrough and Glasgow - examined whether there really are three generations of families who have never worked and whether unemployment in families can be explained by a so-called "culture of worklessness" - by people's attitudes and behaviour. Professors Robert MacDonald and Tracy Shildrick, from Teesside University, and Andy Furlong, from Glasgow University, carried out intensive fieldwork, but were unable to find families with three generations in which no one had ever worked.
Poverty Research
Northern Echo, 17/10/2012, p.35
An internationally-known researcher into poverty and youth issues from Teesside University has organised a conference in Europe to examine the impact of the current economic crisis on young people. The conference held by the Youth and Generation research network of European Sociological Association near Barcelona was organised by Professor of Sociology, Tracy Shildrick.
Why did paid work become the only thing Britain values?
The Peninsula (Qatar), 31/08/2012, p.18
In 2011, Professor Tracy Shildrick of the Social Institute at Teesside University noted that many of society's lowest earners prefer to work even if benefits leave them better off, because they believe that "getting by" is a more respectable option to living on welfare.
Why did paid work become the only thing Britain really values?
guardian.co.uk (Web), 30/08/2012
In 2011, Professor Tracy Shildrick of the Social Institute at Teesside University noted that many of society's lowest earners prefer to work even if benefits leave them better off, because they believe that "getting by" is a more respectable option to living on welfare. Shildrick interviewed an intermittently employed care worker, Andre, who told her: "The whole thing repulsed me, signing on. I just couldn't be doing with it; sponging off the state."