Dr Frances Howard

Role

Associate Professor in Youth Research within the Department of Social Work, Care and Community, teaching on the BA and MA Youth Work courses. Beyond her teaching duties, Frances currently holds two research leadership roles: Youth Research group leader and Deputy Director for the Centre of Policy, Citizenship and Society. She undertakes external research and evaluation activity as part of consultancy in Social Sciences and is S3 Methods Hub Youth ‘expert’. Her role includes teaching and placement supervision, PhD supervision, developing bids for research funding, supporting local Youth Organisations through the Professional Practitioner Network, research publications and project reports.

Frances' teaching and learning profile strongly demonstrates creative pedagogical approaches, which receive positive feedback from students, including the design of practice-based tasks as forms of assessments, supporting work-like learning experiences for students, and creative learning methods such as music elicitation. Due for publication in late 2024 is a co-authored textbook "Researching ‘with’ young people: An introduction to Youth-Centred Research methods", which will support the teaching of research methods across various courses within the Department.

Career overview

Building on her early career as a Youth Worker and Arts Education officer for both local authority and third sector, Frances has over ten years of experience in undertaking research with young people. Her research focuses on the arts and youth work, and as an ethnographer, she frequently draws upon creative methods in youth settings. Her research also extends to other areas where longstanding inequalities within education, wellbeing and youth offending remain problematic. These avenues of investigation have been driven both by national priorities, including her involvement in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Youth Research Advisory Group, and local needs such as the closure of youth clubs in Nottingham, high rates of First Time Entrants to the Youth Justice system and the lack of cultural engagement in Mansfield and Ashfield.

Her close-to-practice research has been instrumental upon the youth work field in developing evidence for the value of informal education and evaluating programmes that benefit some of the most vulnerable young people in today’s society. In particular, her research on young musicians’ wellbeing during COVID-19, global perspectives on youth arts programmes and Nottingham’s youth homelessness, highlight new patterns of cultural practice that counteract disadvantage and instability.

External activity

Frances is actively involved in research, evaluation and consultancy for local programmes, for example ChalleNGe (Nottingham’s Cultural Education Partnership), Captivate (the Youth Partnership for Mansfield and Ashfield) and the YMCA’s food project for homeless young people. The profile of her youth research activity is visible locally (ChalleNGe, Captivate and Youth Professional Practitioner Network (PPN), nationally (DCMS Advisory Board and Youth & Policy journal), and internationally (monograph, Youth Arts International Research Exchange and bids in development). Frances is on the Advisory Board for the Nottingham Community Artists Network. Her research connects NTU to youth research professional bodies, youth policy-making and youth work practice.