Senior Research Associate at University of Bristol

The role

We are seeking a researcher with strong quantitative skills to be the analyst on a project that will examine the relationship between absence and exclusion from school and involvement in violence in young people. The role will provide an exciting opportunity to use data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) linked to education data and local police records.

In this role you will work alongside a Research Fellow in Epidemiology (who will line manage the post holder) and a Senior Research Fellow in Medical Statistics (who will provide statistical guidance) at the University of Bristol, and a Professor of Criminology at the University of Hull (who will provide criminology expertise). The research team is also supported by an advisory group, which includes experts in education, youth violence, and childhood adversity. This project is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), and follows on from a project currently being undertaken.

Absence from school – unenforced, in the form of absence, or enforced, in the form of suspension or exclusion are known to be strongly correlated with violent behaviour, but there is debate as to whether this is a direct causal relationship. While there are many harms associated with absence or exclusion, misconstruing the nature of the link between them and violence risks stigmatising those children and distracting attention from the underlying causes of violence. We seek to estimate the absence/exclusion-violence connections in a way that will inform school policies and guide the timing and context of violence prevention programmes for the future.

What will you be doing?

You will work with ALSPAC data linked to education and police data. You will clean and derive variables, conduct both descriptive and regression analyses, document your work and write reports for the funder which summarise the results. The findings will also be written up as a journal article, and we would expect you to be involved in this.

You should apply if

You should consider this role if you have a strong quantitative background (for example in epidemiology, criminology, applied statistics, psychology, or a related quantitative discipline) and have experience in using Stata or another statistical package, and of writing up results in reports or academic papers. Ideally, you will have experience of analysing longitudinal cohort data and/or administrative data (for example education or crime records). The successful applicant will be based in Population Health Sciences within the Bristol Medical School, at the University of Bristol. We encourage interested applicants to make informal enquiries to Dr. Alison Teyhan (alison.teyhan@bristol.ac.uk) or Dr. Rosie Cornish (rosie.cornish@bristol.ac.uk).