News

The annual Student Prize Ceremony for the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy took place on 2 December in the Synge Theatre, with over 100 students, faculty, and guests in attendance. The event brought the School community together to honour outstanding student achievements across various disciplines

The Centre for Forced Migration Studies and Black Studies hosted a one-day symposium on October 18^th marking 20 years since the 2004 citizenship referendum. Scholars from across Ireland came together in Trinity Long Room Hub to explore the racial dimensions of the 2004 citizenship referendum.

Congratulations to David Ralph for being nominated for his short story Turncoat, about which David says: "This story is about a man who has acted against his better nature, or simply followed it, and is now paying the consequences for his actions."

The Department seeks to appoint an Assistant Professor in the area of Quantitative Sociology, to join us on 1 August, 2025. Closing date is noon, December 2^nd.

Read about a day in the life of PhD student and teaching assistant Imogen Eve, who has been profiled by Trinity Research. She is pictured here (centre) receiving her Dermot McAleese TA Award in May.

Read about all the major goings-on from the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy and it's constituent Departments over the past academic year here.

Professor Yasseri has been appointed the inaugural Workday Professor of Technology and Society at TCD and TU Dublin. This role will sit at the intersection of technology and society, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, online behaviour and the societal impacts of digital innovations.

Has social media transformed democracy, or is it undermining it? Join Dr. David Landy and sociologists from TCD for a public panel discussion exploring the impact of social media on political discourse and democratic engagement on Thursday, 17 October 2024. Tickets now available.

The Department of Sociology is hiring a Research Fellow to join a team investigating the real live experiences, intentions and strategies of EU migrant workers. This project is a collaboration between Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin and is funded by the HEA. Closing date is July 12^th.

Daniel Faas, Professor in Sociology, hosted the Honorable Maria Elena P. Algabre, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, The Philippines, and Martin Murray, Executive Director of Asia Matters, to discuss the role of the Philippines in global trade, EU-Philippines trade priorities and opportunities for partnerships with Ireland.

The School of Social Sciences and Philosophy honoured 4 outstanding teaching assistants at the Dermot McAleese Teaching Awards on May 28th. In the Department of Sociology, Imogen Eve was awarded the honour for her dedication to her teaching role.

Professor Chzhen was named as a Fellow this morning by Provost Linda Doyle at the annual Trinity Monday celebration. Her research focuses on poverty and inequality across the life course, focusing on material well-being, education, health and life satisfaction.

Professor Chzhen's new research, recently published in The Conversation, shows that larger families have become poorer since the introduction of the two-child limit – and the poorest families are losing out the most.

Mail sspcpd@tcd.ie to RSVP for our CPD Showcase Breakfast Event and learn about our short courses on offer this Spring. There will be short presentations from our 6 CPD course facilitators followed by a Q&A.

TiLT, which develops innovative digital roleplay training that improves and measures diversity and inclusion (D&I) performance within organisations, has won the award and a €10k prize at the final of the 2023 InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition.

New research from Assistant Professor Yekaterina Chzhen and Mengxuan Li, a PhD student at the Department of Sociology found that a one-off experience of poverty, especially if experienced around age three-years-old, is enough to have an impact on a child’s development, according to new research from Trinity College Dublin.

The School of Social Sciences and Philosophy inaugural Student Prize Ceremony was held at the Synge Theatre on December 4^th. The ceremony provided an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate exceptional student achievements within the school. Read more about this year's event & prize winners here >>

The Department of Sociology is now hiring for a Research Fellow (Post-Doctoral Researcher). The successful candidate will investigate the experiences, intentions and strategies of EU migrant workers and employers in Ireland and Northern Ireland who have been impacted by the change in immigration policy precipitated by Brexit.

Best-selling author Professor Erik Angner spoke about his new book, 'How Economics Can Save the World' the other night, in a talk co-organised by the School and the Irish Behavioural Science and Policy Network.

Huge congratulations to Sociology Professor Pablo Gracia who has been promoted to Professor in Sociology.Prof Graicas research focuses on the areas of families and inequalities.

Laura Acosta has received the Outstanding Published Article Award from the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association for her co-authored article "War Commemoration and Nationalism in Belgium, 1914–1945: The Role of Military Networks" published in Social Forces.

Huge congratulations to Sociology Professor Pablo Gracia who secured €2 million over a five-year period to examine the link between adolescent digital use and the reproduction of social inequalities.

Registration is now open for our February CPD course in Applied Behavioural Science. The course will be online in the evenings.

New research from Pablo Gracia in Trinity and Tomás Cano in UNED Madrid, Spain found that mother-child time doubles, two-parent time declines threefold, and father-child time remains low after separation.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is Tuesday February 28th 2023.

Professor Malešević of UCD will discuss his recently published book ‘Why Humans Fight: The Social Dynamics of Close-Range Violence’ this Wednesday, October 5th at 18:00 in the Mháirtin Ui Chadhain lecture theatre (2041B) in the Arts Building.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral researcher . Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is Friday September 5th 2022 @1pm Irish time.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is Friday June 10th 2022.

Congratulations to Dr Jan Skopek who has been elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin (FTCD) in recognition of his research achievements and contribution to College and to the Department.

The Department of Sociology is delighted to announce that applications for MPhil in Race Ethnicity and Conflict scholarships are now open for 2022.

The School is delighted to announce a new summmer internship with Oxfam Ireland, focusing on the areas of policy and advocacy. The deadline to apply is Friday, April 8^th at 17:00.

The Department of Sociology is introducing a new CPD course. Applied Behavioural Science will examine fundamental patterns of individual and group behaviour. The deadline to apply is April 20^th

Aaron Koay received an award from the Trinity Equality Fund to explore the experieence of racism in minority ethnic healthcare students at Trinity. The project will involve an interdisciplinary collaboration between students and staff from the School of Medicine, School of Nursing & Midwifrey and Department of Sociology as well as intersectoral collaboration with the Immigrant Council of Ireland.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is Wednesday April 27th 2022.

Dr Pablo Gracia together with Deborah Chambers, has published a new book titled A Sociology of Family Life.The book queries assumptions about the disintegration of the family by revealing a remarkable persistence of commitment and reciprocity across cultures. It further examines new expressions of inequalities in family life by gender, sexuality, social class, and race/ethnicity across the globe.

A new study led by Assistant Professor Yekaterina Chzhen has found that stress caused by poverty directly impacts children. The findings contradict mainstream theoretical models of povety which hold that economic pressure only indirectly impacts childrens lives via their parents; experience of poverty.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is March 31st 2022.

New research conducted by Professor Richard Layte Department of Sociology and published in the journal European Sociological Review has shown for the first time that economic strain experience by families during Irelands great recession between 2009-2014 had detrimental impact on young peoples performance in state exams at the age of 15.

The Department of Sociology is delighted to announce the launch of Health Politics in Europe, co-edited by Dr Camilla Devitt. The edited collection provides a unique overview of relevant healthcare systems and their evolution in 35 European Countries.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a Teaching Fellow in Applied Behavioural Science. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is Friday 30th July 2021.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is 1pm (Irish time) July 30th 2021.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a Research Assistant. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is June 16th 2021.

Dr Alina Cosma will join the Department of Sociology in February 2022 as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow with Dr Yekaterina Chzhen as supervisor to study trends and variation in adolescent mental well-being in Ireland and across Europe.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a Research Fellow. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is May 14th 2021.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is April 30th 2021.

The Department of Sociology is delighted to announce the launch of Enforcing Silence, co-edited by Dr David Landy, Dr Ronit Lentin and Dr Conor McCarthy The edited collection examines academic freedom and the criticism of Israel.

Congratulations to Daniel Faas on his promotion to Professor in Sociology in the latest round of Trinitys Senior Academic Promotions. Professor Faas specialises om the sociology of migration with particular emphasis on the intersection on migration and education. We wish him continued success in all his academic pursuits.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidater. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is March 29th 2021.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD candidate. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is March 29th 2021.

Dr Elaine Moriarty and Dr Camilla Devitt have been awarded the 2021 Provosts PhD Awards. Dr Moriarty will lead a research project on Deskilling among new EU migrants in Dublin and Dr Devitt will examine how States facilitate the employment of immigrants?Evidence from Ireland.. The awards fund PhD students for 4 years and will be advertised internationally in early 2020.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Phil Mullen from Department of Sociology has been hired as the new Assistant Professor to lead the Trinity Elective in the new Black Studies module.

A recent article in the Journal of Adolescent Health shows the results of an impact evaluation of a government-implemented “cash plus” intervention on gender-equitable attitudes among adolescents in Tanzania. Using a cluster randomised design, the study finds that the intervention increased gender-equitable attitudes among males, but not females.

A new UNICEF report Worlds of Influence: Understanding what shapes child well-being in rich countries uses pre-COVID-19 data to rank EU and OECD countries in a league table according to children’s mental and physical health and academic and social skillset. The study puts Ireland in 12th place out of 38 OECD/EU countries but cautions on the effects of the pandemic. Ireland scores best on academic and social skills (6th), but fares worse on physical health (17th) and mental well-being (26th)..

Dr Jan Skopek publishes a Study in the journal Demography. The study focuses on the educational reproduction of East and West German men and women born between 1930 and 1950 by considering both mobility and fertility pathways.

The Department of Sociology at TCD invites applications for an Assistant Professorship in Sociology in the area of Black Studies. Deadline: October 14th 2002.

In a recent paper published in Studies in Higher Education, Jan Skopek and colleagues evaluate rich long term data from an international graduate school to study PhD student completion rates. Their findings underscore the relevance of factors related to the institutional environment, including the density of supervision and support. Also, having deadlines and sufficient length of funding periods have considerable positive effects on PhD completion rates.

Melissa Bohnert PhD student and Dr Pablo Gracia, Supervisor have been awarded the 2020 Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship for the project Social Inequalities in Child Time Use and Development in Ireland. A mixed Methods Longitudinal Approach. The project will investigate social inequalities in children’s daily activities and well being by using Irish longitudinal data and paying particular attention to contemporary digital contexts.

Dr Elaine Moriarty from the Department of Sociology has been awarded the TRiSS Academic Research Fellowship for the project, Graduate Careers and Social Capital. The project seeks to understand the Trinity College Dublin graduate experiences in the transition from College to work through a survey of Social Sciences and Philosophy graduates from 1950 to 2016..

The Department of Sociology, in collaboration with DkIT and ESA organised the Sociology of Education International Conference, Inclusive Education and Society in a Time of Change: Theories, Policies and Practices on 20th and 21st August 2020.

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD researcher. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is May 15th 2020 1pm (Irish Time).

The Department of Sociology is seeking to appoint a PhD researcher to work on the TeenPath Project. Applications are now being accepted for this exciting position. Deadline is May 15th 2020 1pm (Irish Time).

Dr Pablo Gracia represented TCD Sociology in March for the kick-off meeting of the DIGYMATEX an ambitious 5-year project funded by the EU with 3.4 million euro to understand how children’s digital engagement and smartphones impact their well-being in today’s society.

Dr Anne Holohan, Department of Sociology welcomed 12 military, police and civilian trainers from Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Kosovo and Uganda to Trinity College for a 2 day training in the GAP module, a digital game to train peacekeepers in a curriculum of soft skills with assessment.

Dr Gracia will be leading the 5 year international project in Ireland which has received 3.4 million from the European Commission. The project will provide new scientific and policy tools to understand how digitalisation is affecting child well-being in contemporary societies.

Together with international colleagues, Dr Jan Skopek has published an annual review article on the role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for social in equality of educational opportunity. By taking on a cross-national perspective and linking child development and intervention research with sociological social stratification perspectives, the article discusses ECEC as a policy strategy for equalization in early childhood.

Dr Pablo Gracia together with international colleagues, has published a new study at the Journal of Marriage and Family that examines how children’s and adolescent daily activities differ across national contexts. Using rich time-diary data from Finland, Spain and the UK, the study shows very strong variations in children’s daily routines across policy and cultural contexts.

Professor Daniel Faas and Dr Kat Chzhen have been awarded the 2019 Provosts PhD Awards. Faas will lead a research project on multi-Ethnic Communities and Religion How Accommodating are Irish Primary Schools?Chzhens project examines the links between exposure to poverty and children’s education, health and life satisfaction in Ireland, Scotland and Australia during the period before, during and after the latest global economic crisis. The awards fund PhD students for 4 years and will be advertised internationally in early 2020.

The article published at the Irish Times covers the results of Cadhla McDonnells new study on the well-being of fathers and mothers, using American time-diary data.

Dr Yekaterina Chzhen joins the Department from UNICEF Office of Research. Kat works on poverty across the life course focusing on material well-being, education, health and life satisfaction.

Professor Richard Layte, Department of Sociology chairs sessions at Social Isolation, Loneliness Health and Policies Conference at Trinity College Dublin. The event examined research on the relationship between social isolation, loneliness and health and the policy implications of this.

Professor Daniel Faas,together with Dr Rachel Fionda (UCD), has published a chapter on Ireland discussing the main research traditions that have emerged in Ireland over the past four decades. This literature synthesis and analysis is part of the second edition of a Palgrave Handbook.

On the 21st October 2019, Department of Sociology and TILDA with the Institute of Public Health will examine research on the relationship between social isolation, loneliness and health and the policy implications of this. The event will be chaired by Professor Richard Layte and Professor Anne Kenny.

Trinity sociologist Daniel Faas, with Per Mouritsen (Aarhus) and Nasar Meer (University of Edinburgh), has published the paper titled “Leitkultur Debates as Civic Integration in North-Western Europe”. It forms part of a special issue theorizing the civic turn in European integration policies.

The project ("Researching and Promoting Positive Adult and Child Mental Health and Wellbeing in Lone-Parent Families") is a collaboration be tween Sociology TCD and the NGO One Family. The project will combine cohort longitudinal data with an intervention study, using objective indicators of parent and child stress and mental well-being, to better understanding and promoting the well-being of single parents and their children.

Cadhla McDonnell, joins the Department of Sociology from Pennslyvania State University. As a post-doctoral researcher at Sociology TCD, Cadhla McDonnell will be working with Dr Gracia studying family form, well being & mental health.

The research led by Prof Layte,found that children from primary educated backgrounds were more likely to be overweight or obese at any age, compared with children whose mothers had a tertiary-level education.

The study led by Dr Gracia, reveals the impact of parental separation on children’s daily activities, emphasising the observed differences between girls and boys.

Daniel Faas, Associate Professor in Sociology, has secured funding from the Irish Research Council. The consortium, which includes researchers at Trinity, NUIG and QUB, will focus on "Examining European Cultural Identity through Interdisciplinary Methods."

The report authored by Richard Layte and Elizabeth Nixon, seeks to understand how the economic recession affected experiences of economic strain and stress within families and how this, in turn, was associated with parenting and the socio-emotional and behavioural adjustment of 3-year-olds.

The study led by Dr Gracia, reveals that Spanish children increase substantially their daily screen time and become less involved in educational activities when their mothers work evenings, but this only affects less-educated families.

Dr Jan Skopek, Department of Sociology and Work Package leader of the H2020 project ISOTIS, and Dr Giampiero Passaretta (post-doctoral researcher in ISOTIS), have published a comprehensive edited report on roots and development of social and migration-related educational inequality.

Is trust in political institutions declining? How much does media bias affect electoral outcomes? And how can we re-establish trust where it has been lost? These are just some of the questions explored by economics, philosophy, political science and sociology academics.

The striking findings of a study published on Scientific Reports by researchers of the Lifepath project reveals that socioeconomic disadvantage may trigger chronic inflammation, leading to health inequalities.

Professor Anne Holohan, Sociology Department PI of Gaming for Peace, hosts 2 day international conference which launched a new 2-D role playing to train police, military and civilian peacekeepers in conflict zones

The Department of Sociology is delighted to announce the publication of Dr Niall Gilmartin’s book which examines the conflict transition experiences of women within the Provisional republican movement.’,