School of Sociology and Social Policy
 

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Irmak Karademir

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Biography

I am a cultural sociologist with a focus on the structure and transformation of class inequalities. I received my PhD from the University of Manchester in 2013. Prior to joining the University of Nottingham in 2024, I worked as a Reader and Subject Coordinator of Sociology at Oxford Brookes University.

Since completing my PhD, I have explored the lived experiences of class, particularly by examining the dynamics of taste in areas such as clothing, embodiment, food, feeding, and the arts. I am also interested in how tastes develop in childhood, how they are stratified by cultural intermediaries such as art critics, how these processes vary across time and national contexts, and how broader structures, such as religion and politics, shape the way culture and the arts are valued. My research is underpinned by the belief that seemingly individual evaluative frameworks contribute to the creation of cultural and social boundaries, which in turn reinforce the structural formation and reproduction of inequalities, including but not limited to social class.

I am enthusiastic about engaging with diverse research methodologies. To date, I have utilised a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, including geometric data analysis, regression analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, content analysis, go-along ethnographic approaches, longitudinal analysis, and constant comparative analysis. Currently, I am developing a project using Photo Voice to document young children's development of taste in the arts.

I have held several leadership roles, including Study Group Convenor for the British Sociological Association's Consumption Study Group (2020-2024) and the European Sociological Association's Consumption Research Network (2012-2017). I also served as a board member of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on the Body in the Social Sciences (2004-2017). From 2018 to 2023, I was an editorial board member of The Sociological Review, and I served as an Associate Editorial Board Member of Sociology, the flagship journal of the British Sociological Association, from 2020 to 2022. I currently serve on the Managing Editorial Board of Consumption and Society (Bristol University Press, 2022-present) and contribute to the European Centre for the Study of Culture and Inequality (ECCI).

I welcome opportunities to supervise research students whose interests align with mine.

Teaching Summary

Currently I am teaching:

SOCI2046 Classical Sociological Theory - Autumn

SOCI2038 Research Design and Practice (Quants)

SOCI3014 Gender, the Family & Social Policy

I have taught several modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across three universities including:

Researching the Social World, Social Differences and Divisions, Contemporary Societies, Structure and Change, Culture and Everyday Life, Research Methods, Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Body, Consumption, Class, Culture, Sociology of Consumption, Sociology of Fashion

Research Summary

My areas of interest include class inequalities, social mobility, consumer cultures, intergenerational transmission of taste, cultures of parenting, sociology of food and feeding, fashion and… read more

Recent Publications

School of Sociology and Social Policy

Law and Social Sciences building
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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