The University of Sheffield
Department of Politics

Academic Staff: Maria Grasso

Maria GrassoDr Maria Teresa Grasso, BA (Hons), M Sc, D Phil (Oxon)

Lecturer in Politics and Quantitative Methods

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1702
Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 1717
Room: G.52 Elmfield

Email: m.grasso@sheffield.ac.uk

Profile

Dr Maria Grasso joined the Department as a Lecturer in Politics and Quantitative Methods in September 2011. She received her doctorate from Nuffield College and the University of Oxford in 2011. Her doctoral thesis examined political participation in Western Europe and generational differences in both traditional and extra-institutional political participation such as protest and new social movement engagement. The results from this research based on the analysis of data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Value Study (EVS) showed that across Western Europe younger generations are less likely than older generations to exert political voice - whether through protest or the ballot box. The research also showed that even for protest activism the older generation coming of age in the more ideologically polarized era of the 1960s-70s is more politically active than younger generations coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s, pointing to the need for a more nuanced approach to the study of generational political inequalities and young people's disengagement from politics. Dr Grasso holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (2005) and an MSc in Sociology with Distinction (2006) from the University of Oxford. In 2005, she was awarded an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) “1+3” Studentship Award to fully fund her graduate studies at the University of Oxford. While completing her doctorate, Dr Grasso worked as a Research Fellow on the ESF/ESRC-funded collaborative European survey project Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation (see: www.protestsurvey.eu) based at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton (2009-2011) and as a Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford (2008-2011). Previously, she was a Retained Lecturer in Politics at Pembroke College and a Non-stipendiary Lecturer in Sociology at Hertford College. She has been teaching Undergraduate Politics and Sociology since 2007.

Dr Grasso’s main research interests are in political sociology, particularly the shift from traditional means of political participation relating to parties, electoral politics and left-right conflict, to more diffuse and irregular forms of involvement such as demonstrations, issue campaigns and consumer boycotts. Her academic work deals primarily with quantitative research and statistical analysis of cross-national surveys on political attitudes and behaviour.

Teaching

Dr Grasso’s research interests in empirical political research inform her teaching at both Undergraduate and Masters level. She is currently the Module Leader on five modules:

  • The MA module POL6255 Research Methods. This is the core module for all students on the MA in Politics with Research Methods. It introduces students to research methods, research design and quantitative data analysis with STATA up to logistic regression and predicted probabilities.
  • The Level 3 module POL3104 Dissertation in Political Analysis (Quantitative Methods). Students meet Dr Grasso in quantitative methods group workshops and individual supervision meetings and are assessed on the basis of a 10,000 word dissertation applying quantitative methods. Each year, the best quantitative methods dissertation is awarded the YouGov Prize (see this page for details of this year's winning dissertation).
  • The Level 3 module POL3127 Protest, Participation and Social Change. This module focuses on the changing political values and political participation patterns of the citizens of advanced industrial democracies. We will examine competing theories of political behaviour and social change, including the rise of protest movements.
  • The Level 3 module POL3128 Protest, Participation and Social Change Project. This module involves supervised research on a topic from POL3127 Protest, Participation and Social Change Students will meet Dr Grasso individually for supervision and undertake individual research to be assessed on the basis of a 7,000 word extended essay.
  • The Level 2 module POL229 Political Analysis: Research Design and Data Analysis (with Dr Athanassios Roussias). This is the core module for all Level 2 students in Politics. It provides an introduction to research design and methods for analysing political phenomena. It encourages students to reflect on how they conceptualise, design and analyse the political world as well as introducing them to quantitative data analysis with SPSS.

Teaching in previous years included:

Selected Invited Papers and Conference Participation

Key Projects/Grants

Dr Grasso is an Associate Investigator, since May 2013, on the Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualising Contestation research project www.protestsurvey.eu on which she was previously a Research Fellow. Her role is to continue the surveys of demonstrations in the UK.

Dr Grasso is applying for a number of internal, UK and international research grants. Details of awards and abstracts of the research will be made available on this page.

Professional Activities and Administrative Roles

Dr Grasso is the co-ordinator of the Department’s Governance and Participation Research Group and its workshops. You can see the programme for 2013/14 here. Dr Grasso sits on the Research Committee; she is also the Department’s Website Officer and ECPR Official Representative. She is a member of the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Mid-Western Political Science Association (MPSA), the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Italian Political Science Association (SISP), etc. and has reviewed papers for a number of journals including European Journal of Political Research, British Journal of Political Science, Political Science, Mobilization, Sociological Quarterly, and Social Forces.

Current Research

Key Publications

Journal Articles:

Government Reports, Manuscripts and Working Papers:

PhD Supervision

Dr Grasso is currently supervising the following PhD projects:

First Supervisor:

Second Supervisor:

Previous PhD supervision:

Dr Grasso would be interested in supervising motivated research students in the following, and related, areas:

Feel free to e-mail Dr. Grasso to discuss potential PhD supervision.