Professor Rachel Cohen

Overview

Dr Cohen is a Reader in Sociology.

Dr Cohen joined City, University of London in January 2013. She has previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Surrey and the University of Warwick and visiting lecturer at St Petersburg State University. She obtained an MA and then PhD (both in Sociology) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and between 2007and 2010 Dr Cohen was a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Between 2017 and 2020 Dr Cohen was Head of Department of Sociology at City.

Dr Cohen's main interests are in the sociology of work and employment; especially 'non-standard' work, including self-employment, mobile work, and homeworking and in work-life boundaries. Her PhD focused on the working lives and employment relations of hairdressers. Her current research explores similar issues in the working lives of car mechanics and accountants. Her research involves a mixed-methods approach.

Dr Cohen has co-edited a special issue of Sociology of Health and Illness on 'body work' (work which takes the bodies of others as its object), and an issue of The International Journal of Social Research Methodology on feminism and quantitative methods and an issue of American Behavioral Scientist on Everyday Self-Employment. These form part of ongoing collaborative projects. Dr Cohen is interested in and has written about statistical literacy. She has also written on gender and sport.

Dr Cohen is a Convenor of the BSA Study Group on Work, Employment and Economic Life. She is a co-organiser of the 2018 Work, Employment and Society Conference in Belfast. She is Associate Editor of Work in the Global Economy and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. She was on the editorial board of Work, Employment and Society (2010-2016) and editor of Radical Statistics (2012-2016)

In 2013 Dr Cohen was PI and founding Coordinator of City Q-Step Centre (https://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/sociology/city-q-step-centre). In 2017 Eric Harrison took over from her as Coordinator.

Dr Cohen is Senior Elected Senator at City and Vice-President of City UCU. She was a member of UCU National Executive Committee (2016-18).

Qualifications

1. Postgraduate Certificate in Academic and Professional Practice, University of Warwick, 2008
2. PhD Sociology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States, 1997 – 2005
3. MA Sociology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States, 1995 – 1997
4. BA Politics and Modern History, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 1990 – 1993

Administrative roles

1. Head of Department of Sociology, City, University of London, Sep 2017 – present
2. City Q-Step Centre Coordinator, City, University of London, Sep 2013 – Sep 2017
3. Undergraduate Programme Director, City, University of London, May 2013 – Aug 2016

Research interests

- employment relations and non-standard work (e.g. self-employment, homework and mobile work)
- work-life boundaries
- the times and spaces of work
- occupational labour process variation
- body work'/'body labour'
- worker-customer relations, including 'emotional labour'
- quantitative methods and learning in sociology
- feminist research methods
- mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) research
- gender and sport.

Areas of PhD supervision

Dr Cohen has broad sociological interests and welcome requests to supervise PhDs. Students working in the area of the sociology of work and employment or economic or Marxist sociology are particularly welcome, especially projects which involve non-standard work (e.g. self-employment, mobile work, homeworking, sub-contracting), body work/labour, emotional work/labour, work-life boundaries, the times and spaces of work or the labour process.

Research students

Publications by category