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Carol is a sociologist of work with a research interest in post-industrial communities, and gender and class related social deprivation. She is known for her work on the British miners’ strike of 1984-5, its aftermath and the distinctiveness of the gendered experience of that dispute.

She has been at the forefront of pedagogic innovation, public sociology, and publishing in the subdiscipline of the sociologist of work for more than 20 years.  In 2014 she was recognised for her innovative approach to teaching and learning in sociology when she was awarded BSA/HEA annual Award for Teaching Excellence

Carol is a founding member of Critical Labour Studies (CLS).  CLS is a network of academics, researchers and activists and a set of principles and practices which relate to the co-production of research, public engagement, learning, dissemination and pedagogic innovation.   CLS emerged in response to the importance of a public sociology which engages with non-academic groups as co-producers of research and as learners. CLS is now an international network of teachers, academics, researchers, trade unionists and social and political activists which has over 350 members across 15 countries.

• Radical research perspectives, network and collective: 20 years of CLS, Holgate, J., Martinez Lucio, M., Stephenson, C., Stewart, P. 29 Jul 2025, In: Capital and Class
• The Fire Within: Love, Links, and the Legacy of Women Against Pit Closures, Stephenson, C., Spence, J. 9 Jun 2025, In: Capital & Class
• Fear and Professionalism on the Front Line: Emotion Management of Residential Care Workers Through the Lens of COVID-19 as a ‘Breaching Experiment’, Pulignano, V., Riemann, M., Stephenson, C., Domecka, M. 3 Oct 2024, Essentiality of Work, Emerald Publishing
• Metamodern sensibilities: Toward a pedagogical framework for a wicked world, Bowman, S., Salter, J., Stephenson, C., Humble, D. 3 Jul 2024, In: Teaching in Higher Education
• Proximity to anti-fracking protests: public attitudes about disruption and hydraulic-fracturing risks, Palmer, R., Stretesky, P., Stephenson, C., Short, D. 6 Oct 2024, In: Social Movement Studies
• ‘Go Home, Get a Job, and Pay Some Taxes to Replace a Bit of What You’ve Wasted’: Stigma Power and Solidarity in Response to Anti-Open-Cast Mining Activism in the Coalfields of Rural County Durham, UK, Brock, A., Stephenson, C., Stephens-Griffin, N., Wyatt, T. 1 Jun 2023, In: Sociological Research Online
• Graduate Sensibilities: a Metamodern Pedagogical Framework for a Wicked World, Bowman, S., Stephenson, C., Humble, D. 27 Jun 2023, The North East Universities Consortium Three Rivers Conference
• Putting a Human Face on it: gender and photographic meaning in a Canadian women’s coal mine campaign, Spence, J., Stephenson, C. 2023, In: International Labor and Working-Class History
• Decline or redeployment? The sociology of work in the UK, Stephenson, C., Stewart, P. 1 Nov 2021, In: Nouvelle Revue du Travail
• Editorial: “After Industry” the Economic and Social Consequences of Deindustrialization, Warren, J., Stephenson, C., Wistow, J. 18 Mar 2021, In: Frontiers in Sociology

• Sarah Lea The Unaffordable Strawberry: A Community Ethnography of Working-Class Families and their Food Habitus in Hebburn and Jarrow Start Date: 21/09/2023
• Laura Smith The good enough blind parent: an exploration of how personal assistants impact blind parents when navigating normative parenting ideals Start Date: 01/10/2023
• Sarah Lea The Unaffordable Strawberry: A Community Ethnography of Working-Class Families and their Food Habitus in Hebburn and Jarrow Start Date: 21/09/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Laura Smith The good enough blind parent: an exploration of how personal assistants impact blind parents when navigating normative parenting ideals Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025

• Sociology PhD January 28 2002
• Sociology BA January 28 2002
• Senior Fellow (SFHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA) 2017