About the author

I was born in Aberystwyth in Wales and educated at Ardwyn Grammar School and the University of Wales in Swansea, where I read Sociology and Social Anthropology. After graduating I was appointed Tutor in Sociology at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth.

In 1975 I became Lecturer in Sociology at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology in Cambridge. CCAT amalgamated with Essex Institute of Higher Education in 1989 to form Anglia Polytechnic; in 1992 the Polytechnic became Anglia Polytechnic University. I am still here(!), now as Principal Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Politics at APU in Cambridge.

Over the last twenty years I have authored or co-authored seven introductory texts in sociology.