Dr Jan Windebank
Head of Department
Senior Lecturer in French Studies
Telephone: (0114) 222 4888
j.windebank@sheffield.ac.uk
Qualifications
BSc, Aston University; PhD University of Bath
Biography
In 1981, I began a degree in Modern Languages (French & German) at Aston University. At the time, this was one of only a handful of universities that offered modern language courses based on social scientific rather than literary studies. After graduating with a First Class Honours in 1985, I commenced a PhD in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bath. I obtained my doctorate in 1989 and held my first post as Lecturer in the School of Languages and European Studies at the then Wolverhampton Polytechnic. I joined the Department of French at Sheffield in 1990, first as Lecturer, then as Senior Lecturer from 1997.
Research Interests
My research takes as its overarching theme 'informal work' (that is, forms of work other than formal employment). Within this broad category, I have had two principal interests: on the one hand, gender and informal work and on the other, the informal sector and social exclusion. I have undertaken research on these themes in the context of France and Europe and have also carried out Franco-British cross-national comparisons.
The first strand of this research on gender and informal work has included analyses of the domestic labour debates in France, Franco-British comparisons of employed mothers' childcare strategies, and evaluations of the impact of French state policy on gender divisions of labour in the home. Current research focuses on policy towards paid domestic services in France, Franco-British comparisons of the use of paid domestic services and their impact on gender divisions of domestic labour and Franco-British comparisons of gender and voluntary work.
The second strand addresses the question of using informal work as a tool for tackling social exclusion in a European perspective. The book Informal Employment in the Advanced Economies: implications for work and welfare, published in 1998 by Routledge was the first publication to recognise and theorise the heterogeneity of the paid informal sector in the advanced economies. The book Poverty and the Third Way, published by Routledge in 2003, analyses the role that informal work could play in tackling poverty in Europe.
Professional activities
- Editorial Board member, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
- External examiner for undergraduate programmes at the University of Wolverhampton (since 2004) and Nottingham Trent University (since 2004)
- External examiner for PhD thesis at University of Bath
- Organiser for the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, 1993 and 2006
Current and Recent Research Projects
- A Franco-British comparison of the use of paid domestic services and the ways in which this practice is related to gender divisions of domestic labour, based on the results of a web-based questionnaire survey(current)
- A Franco-British comparison of how gender affects participation in voluntary work (current)
- An analysis of the impact of state policy on the use of paid domestic services in France (2004-2007)
- Explorations of the ways in which the informal sector can be used as a tool for tackling social exclusion in Europe (1998-2005)
Publications since 2001
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2001) Revitalising Deprived Urban Neighbourhoods: an assisted self-help approach, Ashgate, London.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2001) "A critical evaluation of the formalisation of work thesis: some evidence from France", SAIS Review [School for Advanced International Studies, Foreign Policy Institute, Washington DC], Vol XXI, no.1, pp.117-122.
- Cook, J., Roche, M., Windebank, J. and Williams, C.C. (2001) "The evolution of active welfare policies as a solution to social exclusion in Britain", Journal of European Area Studies, vol. 9, no.1, pp. 13-26.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2001) "Acquiring goods and services in lower income populations: an evaluation of consumer behaviour and preferences", The International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, vol.29, no.1, pp.16-24
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2001) "Beyond profit-motivated exchange: some lessons from the study of paid informal work", European Urban and Regional Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.49-61
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2001) "Beyond Social Inclusion Through Employment: harnessing mutual aid as a complementary social inclusion policy", Policy and Politics, vol.29, no. 1, pp.15-28
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2001) "Paid informal work in deprived urban neighbourhoods: exploitative employment or co-operative self-help?", Growth and Change, vol. 32, no. 4, pp 562-571.
- Williams, C.C.& Windebank, J.(2001) "Paid informal work: a barrier to social inclusion?", Transfer [Journal of the European Trade Union Institute], vol.7, no.1, pp.25-40.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2001) "Reconceptualising paid informal exchange: some lessons from urban areas", Environment and Planning A, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 121-140.
- Windebank, J. (2001) ‘Dual-earner couples in Britain and France: gender divisions of domestic labour and parenting work in different welfare states’ Work, Employment and Society, 15 (2) 269-290
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2002) "Why do people engage in paid informal work? a comparison of affluent suburbs and deprived urban neighbourhoods in Britain", Community, Work and Family, vol. 5, no.1, pp.67-83.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2002) "The uneven geographies of informal economic activities", Work, Employment and Society, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 229-248.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2002) "The ‘excluded consumer’: a neglected aspect of social exclusion?", Policy and Politics, vol.30, no. 4, pp. 499-511.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J.(2002) "Reconceptualising women‘s paid informal work: some lessons from lower-income urban neighbourhoods", Gender, Work and Organisation, vol.10, no. 3, pp. 281-300.
- Burns, D., Williams, C.C. and Windebank, J. (2003) Community self-help, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2003) "The slow advance and uneven penetration of commodification", International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 27, no.2, pp. 250-64
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2003) "Alternatives to formal employment: evaluating the geographies of informal economic activities" in R.Lee, A. Leyshon and C.C. Williams (eds.) Alternative Economic Geographies, Sage, London
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2003) Poverty and the Third Way, Routledge, London.
- Williams, C.C. & Windebank, J. (2004) “The heterogeneity of the underground economy”, International Journal of Economic Development, vol. 6, no. 2, pp.1-22.
- Williams, C.C. and Windebank, J. (2004) "The heterogeneity of cash-in-hand work", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol.24, no.1/2, pp124-140
- Windebank, J. (2004) ‘Demand-side incentives to combat the underground economy: some lessons from France and Belgium’, International Journal of Economic Development, vol. 6, no.2, pp.54-75.
- Williams, C.c. & Windebank, J.(2005) ‘Why do households use alternative consumption practices: some lessons from Leicester’, Community, Work and Family, vol. 8, no.3, pp.
- Williams, C.c. & Windebank, J.(2005) ‘Refiguring the nature of undeclared work: some evidence from England’, European Societies, vol 7, no.1, pp37-52 .
- Windebank, J. (2005) ‘Local initiatives to tackle informal employment: an evaluation of community service voucher schemes in Belgium’, Local Governance, vol. 30, no. 2, pp.98-107.
- Windebank, J. (2005) ‘Joining-up national and local actions to tackle undeclared work: some lessons from France’, Local Governance, vol 30, no.4, pp.188-98
- Windebank, J. and Williams, C.C. (2005) "Theorising informal employment", in Aleksander Surdej (ed.) Deformalizacja zatrundneinia, deformalizacja gospodarki, Scholar Publisher/PWN, Warsaw
- Windebank, J. and Williams, C.C. (2005) "Methods of researching informal employment", in Aleksander Surdej (ed.) Deformalizacja zatrundneinia, deformalizacja gospodarki, Scholar Publisher/PWN, Warsaw
- Windebank, J. (2006) ‘The Chèque Emploi-Service, the Titre Emploi-Service and the Chèque Emploi-Service Universel in France: the Commodification of Domestic Work as a Route to Gender Equality?, Modern and Contemporary France, 14 (2), 198-204.
- Windebank, J. (2007) ‘Outsourcing women’s domestic labour: the Chèque Emploi-Service Universel in France’, Journal of European Social Policy, 257-270