About our Project
The Social Justice North East project is a module offered by Newcastle University which sees students work with voluntary organisations in the North East of England to produce research on various issues associated with social justice.
It is led by Prof. Derek Bell, Dr. Emily Clough and Dr. Judy Murray, who are based in the Politics unit of the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University.
Areas of research in the past have included:
- child poverty
- food injustice/food bank use
- issues facing refugees
- asylum seekers in the UK
- spatial justice issues faced by carers
The work produced by the students helps to provide valuable research on topics which have particular importance in the North East.
It also offers practical recommendations and solutions to problems faced by voluntary sector organisations in the area.
The Social Justice North East project allows students to help people with the work they do in their final year at university.
Something which might not be said for a standard dissertation.
The research is conducted by third year undergraduate students taking the ‘Community-Based Research in Politics’ module as part of their degree.
The module is open to students taking Politics BA (Hons), Politics and Economics BA (Hons) and Government and European Studies BA (Hons).
In 2014-15, 15 students took the module.
The students worked in five small research teams with each team working on a single research project designed and conducted under the supervision of Prof. Bell and Dr. Clough.
The results were presented at the first annual Social Justice NE workshop on 24 April 2015, which was attended by a diverse audience, including the chief executives of several local voluntary organisations and local politicians. More information on the workshop is available here. The reports produced by the students are available here. [Feedback on the first year of Social Justice NE is available here.]
In 2015-16, 16 students are taking the module.
They are working in five teams under the supervision of Prof. Bell and Dr. Murray.
More information on the projects and the research teams is available here. [You can keep up-to-date with the projects on twitter @SocialJusticeN You can book your place at the workshop at [web form].