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Robert L. Miller

photo of Robert Miller
Robert Miller

BA (Duke), MA (University of Florida (Gainesville)), PhD (QUB)
Professor of Sociology
Room G.02, 1 College Park East
Ext 3275; e-mail: r.miller@qub.ac.uk

Robert Miller studied at Duke University and the University of Florida and completed his Ph.D. at the Queen's University of Belfast. His main sociological work has been in the areas of social stratification & mobility and gender & political participation. He has contributed to the social policy debate surrounding equal opportunity issues in Northern Ireland - most notably with a highly controversial study of religious discrimination in the Northern Irish Civil Service that led directly to major reforms in that body. He presently has returned to his long-standing interest in social mobility, only employing the qualitative methods of family history and(auto)biographical research.

He has been involved with the European Sociological Association since its founding having been its General Secretary 1997-99 and Chair of the ESA Research Network 'Biographical Perspectives on European Societies' http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/esa/biog.htm  Robert Miller is Convenor of the Masters in Social Research Methods and is Deputy Director of ARKive, a joint initiative of Queen's University and the University of Ulster dedicated to making social science information more accessible to the general public http://www.ark.ac.uk.

Selected recent publications

Books
1998   Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The politics of transition. London: Routledge(edited with R.W. Wilford).

2000   Researching Life Stories and Family Histories. London: Sage Publications.

2001   Researching Social Mobility: New directions. Kuala Lumpur: National University of Malaysia.

2002   SPSS for Social Scientists. London: Palgrave Publishers(with C. Acton, D. Fullerton and J. Maltby).

2003   Biographical Research in Eastern Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate(edited with Robin Humphrey and Elena Zdravomyslova).

2003   The A-Z of Social Research.   London:  Sage Publications.

2005  Biographical Research Methods, Volume I:  Time and Biographical Research.  London:  Sage Publications.

2005  Biographical Research Methods, Volume II:  The Construction of Biographical Meaning.  London:  Sage Publications.

2005  Biographical Research Methods, Volume III:  Contexts.   London:  Sage Publications.

2005  Biographical Research Methods, Volume IV:  Disputes and Concerns in Biographical Research.  London:  Sage Publications.

Refereed articles
1998  'The Limited Concerns of Mobility Research'. Current Sociology 46(4).

1998  'Unemployment as a Mobility Status'. Work, Employment & Society 12(4).

1998  'Worklife Mobility Typologies as Background to Current Class Position - A Research Note'. Economic and Social Review 29(3).

1999  'Personal Dynamics As Political Participation'. Political Research Quarterly 52(2)(with R. Wilford and F. Donoghue).

2001  'The Industrial Context of Social Mobility: Change in structure'. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 18.

Major consultancy reports
2001  'Social Mobility Patterns in Northern Ireland – by Religion and Gender'. Belfast: Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

2002  'Drug and Alcohol Use Among Young People in Northern Ireland: A secondary analysis of drug and alcohol use surveys. Final Report'. Belfast: Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety(with Lizanne Dowds ). http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/publications/2002/drugalcohol.pdf.

2004  'Secondary Analysis of the 1997 and 2001 Northern Ireland Health and Social Wellbeing Surveys'.  Belfast, Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety(with Paula Devine and Dirk Schubotz )  http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/stats&research/ark04.asp.