Tina Skinner

Dr Skinner received her PhD from the University of Sheffield in 1998; she then became a Lecturer in Criminology first at the University of Teesside and then the University of Leicester. She was appointed Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bath in 2002, and Senior Lecturer in 2012. She is one of the founders of the Criminology Degree at the University of Bath.

She was awarded:

• ‘Personal Tutor of the Year’ by the University and Students' Union (2008/9)
• ‘Merit Award’ for the excellence of her lecturing, dissertation supervision and tutoring, by the University of Bath (2010)
• ‘Higher Merit Award’ primarily for her supervision of PhD students (2011)
• 'Contribution Award' for leadership and management (2012)

Dr Skinner’s research is concerned with gender and marginalisation. There are two areas where she focuses her research: (i)  sexual violence and domestic violence, and (ii) the intersection of work, mothering and disability.

In relation to the former, Dr Skinner is known for her research on survivors of rape and their experiences of SARCs (Sexual Assault Referral Centres), the police and courts. She undertook a Home Office funded project on young survivors’ experiences in the criminal justice system including an evaluation of a SARC. She also edited the book Researching Gender Violence which brought together work of the British Sociological Association’s Violence Against Women Study Group. With Olivia Smith she has published on court responses to rape survivors. More recently she is leading a Home Office evaluation of domestic abuse services in Bath and North East Somerset, alongside a Great Wester 4 project to develop a strategic response to gender based violence at University.

In relation to the latter, whilst there is a great deal of research on the impacts of becoming a mother on a woman’s identity and ability to do/progress in paid work, there is very little on the intersection of disability, work and mothering, or indeed more complex intersections. Dr Skinner’s interest here is how working women with impairments cope with the additional pressures of raising a child, the impacts this may have on worker identity and mothering identity, and what can assist in maintaining work. This has been explored through an auto-ethnographic study, life history interviews with mothers who are dyslexic, as well as analysis of what limits and enables paid work in disabled working mothers’ who responded to the Life Opportunity Survey. Dr Tina Skinner was also the founder of the Disability, Work and Parenting Study Group within the Work and Families Researcher Network an international organisation based in the USA.

Research interests

• Mothering and identity
• Disability and dyslexia
• Sexual violence, the police and courts
• Methods in researching sensitive topics, including life story interviews and autp-ethnography.

Conference papers

Skinner, T. (2011) Dyslexia, mothering and identity, paper presentment at The British Sociological Association Annual Conference, London School of Economics.

Smith, O. and Skinner, T (2011a) Observing justice: an exploration into court responses to sexual violence, paper presentment at The British Sociological Association Annual Conference, London School of Economics.

Smith, O. and Skinner, T (2011b) Observing justice: an exploration into court responses to sexual violence, invited speakers at A Conducive Context? Misogyny, Inequality, Violence, London South Bank University.

Smith, O. and Skinner, T (2012) Observing court responses to victims of Rape and sexual assault in the UK, invited speakers at an international conference on ‘Global Perspective on Justice, Security and Human Rights’: New York USA.

Skinner, T. and MacGill, F. (2012) Disability, work and motherhood: A life story approach, paper presentment at The British Sociological Association Annual Conference: Leeds.

MacGill, F. and Skinner, T. (2012) Motherhood and part-time working, paper presentment at The British Sociological Association Annual Conference: Leeds.

Smith, O. and Skinner, T. (2013) Court Responses to Rape, invited speakers at the Rape Crisis Annual Conference: Birmingham.

Skinner, T. and Lim, H-J (2013) Intersectionality in Lived Experience: Disability, Migration, Religion, Poverty, Care and Motherhood, paper presented at the British Sociological Association Conference: London.

Skinner, T. and MacGill, F. (2014) Disability, Work and Parenting, paper presented at the Work and Family Research Network Conference: New York, USA.

Dr Tina Skinner primarily supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students in three areas of research:

• Identity and mothering
• Dyslexia
• Sexual and domestic violence