Dr Kat Simpson

Dr Kat Simpson 

Dr Kat Simpson’s research interests are in deindustrialisation, social haunting, and social class, especially young people’s experiences of education, employment, and community in former coalmining communities. Kat is recognised as a leading researcher within her field and has an extensive publication record on the ways in which industrial and cultural matters of the past shape present-future temporalities for the working class in the former coalfields. She is the author of Social Haunting, Education and the Working Class: Reimagining Schooling in a Former Mining Community published by Routledge in 2021; and co-author of Education, Work and Social Change in Britain's Former Coalfields: The Ghost of Coal published by Palgrave in 2022.

Kat is a working-class academic and the roots of her research interests lie in her own experience of growing up in a former coalfield ‘in the shadow of coal’. She has established relationships with academics across various disciplines writing about deindustrialisation; and other community organisations, grassroots and local voluntary sector organisations, trade unions and campaigns such as the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign who led the Keynote for her Symposium on 'The Ghost of Coal' in 2023.

Her current research project ‘Mined Out?: Youth in the Former Coalfields’ worked in partnership with The Yorkshire and Humber Youth Work Unit and Partnership for Young London to explore 40 working-class lads’ (11-25-years-old) experiences of growing up in the former coalfields of Barnsley. The research was led by and with young people, so five ‘Young Leaders’ from the former coalfields were recruited and trained in the notion of social haunting (theoretical knowledge) and in arts-based methods and qualitative analysis (methodology) so they could co-produce research with other young lads from the locality. The pilot study focused on three spheres – education, employment, and community – and explored the lads’ orientations towards, and lived experiences of, these spheres in order to begin to transform youth conditions, experiences, and policy.

Kat is also Course Leader for BA (Hons) Primary Education Studies (Accelerated, Non QTS) Degree.

Research Projects

ESRC- Principal Investigator: Impact Acceleration Account, Mined Out?: Youth in the Former Coalfields’ (March-October 2024). In Partnership with The Yorkshire and Humber Youth Work Unit and Partnership for Young London

Save the Children – Co-Organiser: 'Raising Participation' Outreach Workshop at The University of Huddersfield. Funded by Save the Children (May 2024).