Dr Eric Harrison
Senior Research Fellow and Acting Deputy Director of the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys
Overview
Dr Eric Harrison came to the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys in October 2006 to manage a five-year programme of networking and research activities within the ESS Infrastructure project (ESSi). His current responsibilities include: the development of indicators of societal wellbeing for use in comparative social research; enhancing the quality of labour market variables in the survey; and the implementation of new methods of coding media reporting during ESS fieldwork periods.
Dr Harrison studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and subsequently spent eight years as Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Plymouth. In 2000 he went to Nuffield College, Oxford where he completed a doctorate examining the working conditions of the self-employed. This used multiple national sample surveys to chart the different levels of job quality, job satisfaction, labour market insecurity and socio-political attitudes associated with different groups of self-employed workers, depending on their position in a hierarchy of employer-dependence.
From 2004 to 2006 he was the assistant academic convenor of an EU-funded consortium developing the new European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) for use by academics and statistical offices in the European Research Area.
Research interests
His ongoing research interests lie in the analysis of social stratification, social inequality and the methodological and substantive challenges of comparative social research. Eric is on the editorial board of the journal Sociology and is Treasurer of the British Sociological Association.
Publications
Harrison E, Jowell R and Sibley E, 'Developing Attitudinal Indicators of Societal Progress', ASK: Methods and Research, Vol 20, 2011.Harrison E, 'Measuring Social Class', in Bulmer M, Gibbs J and Hyman L (eds.), Social Measurement through Social Surveys: An Applied Approach, Ashgate, 2010.
Harrison E and Fitzgerald R, 'A Chorus of Disapproval? European attitudes to non-traditional family patterns', in Park A et al (eds.) British Social Attitudes, the 26th Report, Sage, 2010.
Rose D and Harrison E (eds.), Social Class in Europe: An Introduction to the European Socio-economic Classification, Routledge, 2010.