James Laurence is an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow at the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research and the Department of Sociology. James joined the Institute for Social Change at Manchester in 2012 as a postdoctoral research associate on the 'Social Change: A Harvard-Manchester Initiative' (SCHMi) project. Before joining the school he was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, and worked as a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and as a visiting fellow in the Department of Sociology, at Stockholm University. He completed his PhD at the University of Oxford in 2011.   

His current project, the 'Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Ethnic Diversity, Socio-Economic Inequality and Social Cohesion', explores the role of ethnic diversity, immigration and inequality in the creation and dissolution of social capital, cohesion and inter-group relations. His other research interests include the impact of micro- and macro-scale economic hardships for social, civic and political attitudes and behaviours, and ethnic-inequalities in violent crime.

Ethnic diversity, immigration and inter-ethnic relations

Social capital and civic/political engagement

Communities and social cohesion

Multi-level modelling, contextual-effects and organizational foci

Macro- and micro-scale economic hardships

Ethnic inequalities in violent crime