Claire Maxwell (sociologist)

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Claire Maxwell
CM-Jan24-wiki.jpg
Claire Maxwell in Copenhagen, 2024
Born (1975-03-28) 28 March 1975 (age 49)
Alma mater University of Oxford (MA, MSc)
Royal Holloway (PhD)
Known for Cosmopolitan nationalism
Scientific career
Fields Sociology of education
Sociology of immigration
Gender and education
Institutions University of Copenhagen
Institute of Education
Thesis Gender versus ‘vulnerability’: how they determine young people’s sexual and relationship experiences  (2005)
Doctoral advisor Betsy Stanko
Website www.cmaxwell.uk

Claire Maxwell is a sociologist specialising in education, immigration, and gender. She currently holds a chair in sociology at the University of Copenhagen, where she is also deputy Head of Department. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

Maxwell was born and spent her childhood in Luxembourg. [3] She holds German and Australian citizenship, and is fluent in English, German, French, and Danish. She attended the European School in Luxembourg, graduating from its EB programme in 1993.

Education

Maxwell gained a MA in PPE from The Queen's College, University of Oxford in 1996. She remained at Oxford (Green Templeton College and Department of Social Policy and Intervention) to study for a MSc in Applied Social Studies and a postgraduate Diploma in Social Work (PGDipSW), which qualified her to practise as a social worker in the UK in 1999. [4]

Maxwell subsequently earned a PhD in 2005 at Royal Holloway College by defending a thesis [5] entitled "Gender versus ‘vulnerability’: how they determine young people's sexual and relationship experiences". She was supervised by Betsy Stanko.

Career

Maxwell combined her part-time PhD research with employment by Oxfordshire County Council, initially as a social worker, and later as a public health specialist and teenage pregnancy co-ordinator for the county, developing and implementing a strategy to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy across Oxfordshire.

After her PhD award, Maxwell was employed by the Institute of Education from 2005, progressing through appointments as researcher and lecturer, culminating in her appointment as Professor in 2018. She accepted a chair in Sociology at the University of Copenhagen and took up the post in September 2018. [6]

Research

Maxwell's broad research interests include the transnational migration of high-skilled professionals, the sociology of education, and gender and education.

She is currently best known for her development, with colleagues, of the education sciences concept of cosmopolitan nationalism [7] .

Other specific current interests include the processes of incorporation by international professionals and their families in new countries and work places, the convertibility of resources during transnational mobility, the internationalisation of education, and the emergence of elite schools around the world. She has been awarded research funding in the UK by the ESRC [8] and in Denmark by the Danish Innovation Fund [9] and the Independent Research Fund Denmark. [10] [11]

Working with private and public partners in industry, during 2022 and 2023 Maxwell led the development of research-based digital onboarding tools designed for Danish companies to use as they seek to improve their recruitment and retention of high-skilled international professionals. [12]

Her Google Scholar H index is 31. [13]

Books and research publications

In March 2023 Bloomsbury published Sociological Foundations of Education, a new and comprehensive overview of how sociology has shaped the study of education, with Maxwell as lead editor and key chapter author. [14]

Maxwell's most recent monograph was published by Routledge [15] in October 2021. It examines why families travel today – and what happens when they do. Maxwell and her co-authors focus on how social class divergence is forged through movements across borders, and how travel has been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

Maxwell is currently co-editor of the journal International Studies in Sociology of Education, [16] and co-editor of Comparative & International Education Society’s new book series: Education in Global Perspectives, [17] to be published by SUNY Press in 2024. Her work has appeared in a number of high impact journals, including Sociology, [18] the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, [19] the British Journal of Sociology of Education, [20] and Globalisation, Societies and Education. [21]

Media, science communication, and public engagement

Maxwell was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed [22] [23] in 2016.

She regularly uses her LinkedIn [24] and X [25] social media accounts to discuss her research and highlight new publications. She has appeared on the FreshEd podcast [26] and has also featured on YouTube talking about her research. [27]

Public educational service

Maxwell has extensive experience of school governance and practical educational policy implementation, at both primary and secondary levels, focusing latterly on international schools. She has served on the board of Rygaards International School in Copenhagen, and was formerly Chair of Governors at West Oxford Community Primary School in the UK. Since May 2024 she has served on the Board of Copenhagen International School. [28]

Personal life

Maxwell lives in Gentofte. [6] She is a committed CrossFit athlete, [29] and has a Half marathon PB of 1:29:43. [30]

The retired figure skater, Olympian, and fitness influencer Fleur Maxwell [31] [32] is her youngest sister. Her maternal aunt is the former Australian politician Marjorie Henzell.

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Cosmopolitan nationalism is a concept used to describe the dual tendency of combining local and global policy orientations in modern education studies. The concept describes the conflicting pressures within national education structures to promote internationalization and a global gaze, while also seeking to remain locally relevant and a primary contributor to national projects of economic development, social cohesion and nation building. The concept was developed for application in the context of education policy studies in 2020 by Claire Maxwell, Miri Yemini, Ewan Wright, Laura Engel, and Moosung Lee to analyze the complexities of modern educational policies and education reform agendas.

References

  1. Institut, Webmaster på Sociologisk (4 May 2015). "Professors and Associate Professors". www.sociology.ku.dk.
  2. "Departmental Management". 10 January 2024.
  3. "The International". 2 July 2021.
  4. "Online CV, UCPH". 21 June 2023.
  5. "RHUL Library, thesis link". 21 June 2023.
  6. 1 2 "Outside perspective: "I like that Danes invest themselves socially at their workplaces"". 8 July 2019.
  7. "Cosmopolitan Nationalism: Understanding education systems".
  8. "Claire Maxwell, UKRI Gateway to Research". gtr.ukri.org.
  9. "Danish companies get new tools for recruiting internationals". www.sociology.ku.dk/. 11 May 2021.
  10. "Se alle støttede forskningsprojekter". Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond.
  11. "UCPH Faculty of Social Sciences project website". 18 June 2023.
  12. Capacity, Copenhagen. "Project Onboard Denmark". international-rekruttering.state-of-denmark.com.
  13. "Claire Maxwell". scholar.google.com.
  14. "Sociological Foundations of Education". Bloomsbury.
  15. "Nurturing Mobilities: Family Travel in the 21st Century". Routledge & CRC Press.
  16. "International Studies in Sociology of Education Editorial Board".
  17. "CIES Book Series - Global Perspective". www.cies.us.
  18. Yemini, Miri; Maxwell, Claire; Koh, Aaron; Tucker, Khen; Barrenechea, Ignacio; Beech, Jason (21 December 2020). "Mobile Nationalism: Parenting and Articulations of Belonging among Globally Mobile Professionals". Sociology. 54 (6): 1212–1229. doi: 10.1177/0038038520933457 via CrossRef.
  19. "National cultural capital as out of reach for transnationally mobile Israeli professional families – making a 'return home' fraught: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies: Vol 0, No 0".
  20. "Tweet". twitter.com. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  21. Yemini, Miri; Maxwell, Claire (27 May 2022). "Alternative modes of family travel: middle-class parental 'exit' strategies as a different orientation towards global citizenship education". Globalisation, Societies and Education. 20 (3): 337–348. doi:10.1080/14767724.2021.1889993 via CrossRef.
  22. "Thinking Allowed, Success and Luck - Cosmopolitanism and Private Education". BBC. 7 December 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  23. "Claire Maxwell speaks on BBC Radio 4 programme". UCL. 8 December 2016.
  24. "Claire Maxwell: LinkedIn". 18 June 2023.
  25. "Claire Maxwell: Twitter". 19 October 2020.
  26. "FreshEd #195 – Unpacking School Internationalization (Claire Maxwell)" via soundcloud.com.
  27. "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  28. "Meet the Board | Copenhagen International School". www.copenhageninternational.school.
  29. "Claire Maxwell: CrossFitGames profile". 17 October 2020.
  30. "Results: Oxford Half Marathon 2014". 13 October 2014.
  31. "Body By Fleur". Body by Fleur.
  32. "Body by Fleur (@bodybyfleur) • Instagram photos and videos". www.instagram.com.