Dr Helene Snee

My profile

Biography

Originally from Yorkshire, I have lived in Manchester since coming to university in 1998 and the city is my adopted hometown. Sociology is not simply a job for me; I am ‘a Sociologist’ and it is part of my identity. My passion for the discipline comes from its potential to help us understand and challenge social inequalities. This has driven my research interests, which focuses on social class and its intersections. I am an advocate of collaborative research and a member of the ‘Res-Sisters’ feminist collective.

On a personal level, I love music, contemporary novels and cheesy horror films. I also enjoy yoga and travelling to diverse places; New York, Tuscany and the Orkney Islands are some recent favourites.

What I do

Interests and expertise

Cultural class analysis

Critical perspectives on social mobility and gender

Youth and education

New media research / digital social research

Cosmopolitanism

I tell my students, "When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game"
Toni Morrison, 2003

Projects

My current project, ‘Learning to care in unprecedented times: the Impact of Covid-19 on nursing education’ aims to make recommendations for the NHS and university Schools of Nursing. 

The project offers insights into how the pandemic has affected learning and employment opportunities for student nurses. The study has identified the support that both current and future nursing students may need.

It also highlights how the pandemic has made long-standing issues more urgent, such as the workforce shortages, nurses’ working conditions and concerns over their professional status.

The project offers insights into students’ experiences. It draws on wider concerns for the sociology of education, including social mobility and widening participation policy. This research was supported by The British Academy [grant number COV19\201055].

https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/research-centres/projects/covid-impact-nursing-education

Future research aims to expand these themes to consider the role of class, gender and intersecting inequalities on educational pathways and career trajectories of other caring professions.

Teaching

Why do I teach?

I remember very clearly learning about the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu when I was a second year undergraduate. His work on the role of culture in reproducing inequality encapsulates everything I love about Sociology: the pulling apart of what is taken-for-granted. I call this my ‘lightbulb moment’ when my ‘sociological imagination’ was captured and I could reflect on both my own experiences and wider social life in a new and exciting way. I teach Sociology because I want to spark these lightbulb moments in others, to encourage students to look at the world around them differently, and hopefully change it for the better.

How I’ll teach you

My teaching method is to balance critical pedagogy, which challenges how students see the world and act to change it, with a student-led, active approach. I’ll prompt you to leave ‘common-sense’ understandings of the social world behind by introducing you to sociological perspectives and research, and then guide you to develop your own ideas based on critique and evaluation. Reading is absolutely critical for studying sociology, so I’ll encourage you to read widely, but it’s also a practical discipline. Rather than tell students everything about a topic, my aim is to equip you with the empirical, theoretical and methodological tools to engage with real-life issues as sociologists. I am also working towards deconstructing my reading lists so that they don’t only feature the work of ‘old white men’ and instead promote diverse voices including working class, Black and feminist scholars.

Courses

Supervision

Current PhD Students (as second supervisor):

Liz Cain: Assessing the value and impact of engaged learning models

Sophie Harris: A cross-cultural study on factors that affect the purpose and effectiveness of the mathematical methods of teaching and curriculum in Singapore and England.

Yvonne Norris: Sober social communities and platforms: The role of online sobriety communities among female non-problematic drinkers

I would be interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:

  • Social class (particularly with regards to culture, consumption and identity)
  • Youth transitions
  • Social mobility
  • Education and inequalities

Research outputs

  • Books (authored/edited/special issues)

    Savage, M., Cunningham, N., Devine, F., Friedman, S., Laurison, D., McKenzie, L., Miles, A., Snee, H., Wakeling, P. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. Pelican Books.

    Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., Watson, H. (2015) Digital Methods for Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Research Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Snee, H. (2014) A cosmopolitan journey? Difference, distinction and identity work in gap year travel.

  • Chapters in books

    The Res-Sisters, 'I'm an early career feminist academic : get me out of here?..' In Thwaites, R., Godoy-Pressland., A. (ed.) Feminist Beginnings: Being an Early Career Feminist Academic in a Changing Academy. Palgrave Macmillan,

    Hookway, N., Snee, H. (2019) 'Blogs in social research.' Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences. pp. 1353-1368.

    Ingram, N., The Resisters, , Snee, H. (2018) 'Mobilising a Feminist Manifesta: Critical reflections on challenging and being challenged in the neoliberal academy.' Strategies for Resisting Sexism in the Academy Higher Education, Gender and Intersectionality. Springer,

    Cunningham, N., Snee, H., Devine, F. (2017) '‘A Classless Society?’ Making Sense of Inequalities in the Contemporary UK with the Great British Class Survey.' Inequalities in the UK New Discourses, Evolutions and Actions. Emerald Group Publishing,

    Hookway, N., Snee, H. (2017) 'The Blogosphere.' Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods.

    Snee, H., Devine, F. (2015) 'Young People's Transitions to Employment: Making Choices, Negotiating Constraints.' Handbook of Children and Youth Studies. Dordrecht,

    Snee, H. (2011) 'Youth Research in Web 2.0: A Case Study in Blog Analysis.' Innovations in Youth Research. Palgrave Macmillan,

  • Reports

    Snee, H. The impact of Covid 19 on nursing education: Learning to care in unprecedented times.

  • Internet publications

    Snee, H.L. (2015) 'Mind the Gap Year', Discover Society Issue 22.. http://discoversociety.org/2015/07/01/mind-the-gap-year/.

  • Journal articles

    Snee, H., Goswami, H. (2021) 'Who Cares? Social mobility and the ‘class ceiling’ in nursing.' Sociological Research Online, 26(3) pp. 562-580.

    Snee, H., White, P., Cox, N. (2021) ''Creating a modern nursing workforce’: nursing education reform in the neoliberal social imaginary.' British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(2) pp. 229-244.

    Snee, H., Devine, F. (2018) 'Fair chances and hard work? Families making sense of inequality and opportunity in 21st-century Britain.' British Journal of Sociology, 69(4) pp. 1134-1154.

    Devine, F., Snee, H. (2015) 'Doing the Great British Class Survey.' Sociological Review, 63(2) pp. 240-258.

    Snee, H., Devine, F. (2014) 'Taking the next step: class, resources and educational choice across the generations.' Journal of Youth Studies, 17

    Savage, M., Devine, F., Cunningham, N., Friedman, S., Laurison, D., Miles, A., Snee, H., Taylor, M. (2014) 'On Social Class, Anno 2014.' Sociology,

    Snee, H. (2013) 'Making Ethical Decisions in an Online context: Reflections on using blogs to explore narratives of experience.' Methodological Innovations Online, 18

    Snee, H. (2013) 'Doing something 'worthwhile': intersubjectivity and morality in gap year narratives.' Sociological Review, 62

    Snee, H. (2013) 'Framing the Other: cosmopolitanism and the representation of difference in overseas gap year narratives.' British Journal of Sociology, 64

    Procter, R., Williams, R., Stewart, J., Poschen, M., Snee, H., Voss, A., Asgari-Targhi, M. (2010) 'Adoption and use of Web 2.0 in scholarly communications.' Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 368(1926) pp. 4039-4056.

  • Other

    Snee, H. (2014) Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty.

    Snee, H. (2014) Volunteer tourism and the ‘cosmopolitan’ gap year.

Career history

2001

Graduated from University of Manchester with BA(Econ)(Hons) Sociology

2010

Awarded PhD Sociology from University of Manchester

2010 - 2014

Worked in the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester as Lecturer and Research Associate.

2014

Joined Manchester Met as Lecturer in Sociology

2015

My book A Cosmopolitan Journey? Difference, distinction and identity work in gap year travel was shortlisted for the 2015 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize for best first and sole-authored book in Sociology. 

2016

Promoted to Senior Lecturer

2020

Awarded first grant as Principal Investigator for ‘Learning to care in unprecedented times: the Impact of Covid-19 on Nursing Education’ (funded by the British Academy)