Professor Alan France

“My main research interests are related to Youth and the Life Course. This covers a wide range of areas and includes youth transitions, youth crime, youth and (sub)culture, youth and new media and youth and policy.

“I am presently writing a book on the Political Ecology of Youth and Crime (due 2012) which explores in a systematic way the interrelationship between youth criminal identities and social ecology. This work builds and intersects with a number of writing projects that I have recently been undertaking around youth crime, risk, and citizenship.

“I was born and educated in Sheffield in the UK. In 1986 I returned (as a mature student) to higher education and completed by undergraduate and post-graduate studies at the University of Sheffield. I completed by doctorate in 1994 and after working in Sheffield and Warwick Universities as a Research Fellow I was appointed in 2000 as lecturer in Sociology at the Department of Sociological in Sheffield.

“In 2002 I was instrumental in setting up the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth which brought together fourteen university departments spread across five university faculties and involved a wide number of international academic partners (USA, Europe and Australia). In 2001 I was also successful in winning the multi million pound ESRC Research Network: Pathways into and Out of Crime. In 2006 I was appointed Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP). The centre employed 27 staff and undertook a wide range of national and international social policy research.

“I was appointed as Professor of Sociology at The University of Auckland in November 2010. I took up the role as Head of Department in July 2011."

Professor Alan France
Department of Sociology
Professor of Sociology

Phone: + 64 9 373 7599 ext 84507
Email: a.france@auckland.ac.nz

Useful links
Department of Sociology
Professor Alan France's staff page