Dr Adriana Duta
Lecturer in Quantitative Methods

- Moray House School of Education and Sport, IECS
- University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6458
- Email: adriana.duta@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education and Sport, SLH 2.13
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
Dr. Adriana Duta is a Lecturer in Quantitative Methods. Her research uses large-scale survey and administrative data to investigate social inequalities in educational and labour market outcomes and the factors associated with early emergence of social inequalities in cognitive and non-cognitive skills as precursors of later disadvantage.
Adriana is affiliated with the ESRC-funded project Understanding Inequalities for which she previously worked as Research Fellow. She joined the University of Edinburgh in 2015 as AQMeN Education and Social Stratification postdoctoral researcher.
Adriana has a background in Sociology, (BA, MA, University of Bucharest, 2009; MSc, University of Groningen/Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology, 2011) and a PhD in Social Statistics and Demography (University of Southampton, 2016). Her PhD thesis investigated the link between parental education, intergenerational educational mobility and fertility and was funded by the ESRC (+3 Advanced Quantitative Methods scholarship). During her PhD, she was also awarded an ESRC Overseas Institutional Visit grant to visit The Center for Research on Inequalities and The Life Course within the Sociology department at Yale University. While at the University of Southampton, Adriana was involved in teaching introductory quantitative methods and co-authored a Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) report entitled ‘Investigating an age threshold for independence at postgraduate level’.
Before starting her PhD, Adriana had worked for two years as a Research Assistant in the Sociology department at the University of Groningen where she also studied the relationship between social origin (i.e. parental education and social class) and typologies of transition to adulthood in different welfare regimes. Other activities in which Adriana was involved include a three-month internship focusing on gender statistics within the Statistical Division at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva (2011) and a one year research assistantship within national research/statistical system projects in Romania, mainly funded by international organisations such as the EU, UNICEF and World Bank (2008-2009).
Postgraduate teaching
Quantitative Data Analysis
Designing Educational Research: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Survey Designs
Dissertation Support Strand: Quantitative analysis using survey data
MSc. thesis supervision:
1. Panxia Zhou ‘Inequalities by parental background in cognitive skills. Do non-cognitive skills matter?’ (quantitative analysis using Millennium Cohort Study), University of Edinburgh (2019)
2. Weijiao Cai ‘Parental education and children’s cognitive skills: the role of out-of-school education’ (quantitative analysis using Millennium Cohort Study), University of Edinburgh (2019)
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Research summary
Adriana has a strong research interest in social stratification in education, labour market and family behaviour and how individual and contextual factors interact in shaping people’ life chances across their life course. She tackles these topics using large-scale survey and administrative data and quantitative methods.
- Social Stratification and Social Mobility
- Social Inequalities in Education, Labour Force and Family Behaviour
- Life Course (from early childhood to adulthood)
- Cross-National Comparative Analysis
- Quantitative Data Analysis
Knowledge exchange
Research briefs, blog posts and publications for non-academic audiences:
- Blog post Understanding the Attainment Gap (together with Francesca Fiori and Cristina Iannelli), 2019
- Policy report The impact of inequalities in the early years on outcomes over the life course. Using international evidence to identify creative policy solutions, 2019
- Blog post Social inequalities in graduates’ labour market outcomes: the role of spatial mobility and job opportunities, 2016
- Policy report Social Inequalities in Education: why and how national institutional factors matter author of ‘Learning across countries and contexts- a summary of the panel discussion’, Edinburgh, 2015
Presentations and organising knowledge exchange events:
- ‘In conversation with Professor Cristina Iannelli & Dr. Adriana Duta: Understanding the Attainment Gap’ research dissemination to (head)teachers, University of Edinburgh (organiser & speaker), 2019
- ESRC Festival of Social Science policy/public engagement event ‘Understanding Inequalities. 20 years of devolution: how have inequalities in Glasgow changed’ (organiser and contributing to preparation of posters, presentation and moderating round-table discussion) Glasgow, 2018
- Edinburgh University Students’ Association Women in STEM: ‘Gender inequality in STEM fields of study’, Edinburgh, (speaker) UK 2017
- Public seminar ‘Social inequalities in graduates' labour market outcomes in the UK: the role of regional job opportunities’ (speaker), Edinburgh, UK, 2017
- ‘Pupil Equity Funding’ Launch Event, dissemination research to teachers and head teachers, Edinburgh, 2016
- ESRC Festival of Social Science policy/public engagement event ‘Social Inequalities in Education: why and how national institutional factors matter’ round table facilitator and co-author report, Edinburgh, 2015
- Centre for Population Change (CPC) demographic exhibition ‘How to get to 100 and enjoy it’ (disseminating the latest demographic trends to the general public via interactive tools), Belfast, 2015
Research activities
- Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) Annual Conference 2019 to
- Growing Up in Scotland Annual Conference 2019
- Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Annual Conference 2019 to
- Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) workshop: ‘Longitudinal data across the life course: an introduction to using cohort data’
- Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility - Spring Meeting to
- Scottish Educational Research Association to
- ESRC Festival of Social Science
- Society for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Annual International Conference 2018 to
- Census & Administrative Data Longitudinal Studies (CALLS) Hub Conference
- Administrative Data Research Centre course ‘Introduction to using linked administrative data for social and health research’
Project activity
2017-2020 ESRC-funded project Understanding Inequalities (Research Fellow and affiliated researcher)
2015-2017 ESRC-funded research centre AQMeN Education and Social Stratification (Research Fellow)
2011-2015 ESRC +3 PhD Scholarship and enhanced stipend for Advanced Quantitative Methods (AQM) 'Parental education, intergenerational educational mobility and fertility'
-
Different degrees of career success: social origin and graduates’ education and labour market trajectories
In:
Advances in Life Course Research
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Accepted/In press) -
Secondary school subjects and gendered STEM enrollment in higher education in Germany, Ireland and Scotland
In:
International Journal of Comparative Sociology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715220913043
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Social class inequalities in graduates’ labour market outcomes: the role of spatial job opportunities
(18 pages)
In:
Social Sciences, vol. 7, pp. 1-18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7100201
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Social origins, academic strength of school curriculum and access to selective higher education institutions: Evidence from Scotland and the USA
In:
Higher Education, vol. 75, pp. 1-16
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0166-5
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Inequalities in school leavers’ labour market outcomes: Do school subject choices matter?
(19 pages)
In:
Oxford Review of Education, vol. 44, pp. 56-74
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2018.1409970
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Youth social citizenship and class inequalities in transitions to adulthood in the UK
Research output: › Commissioned report (Published) -
Investigating an age threshold for independence at postgraduate level: Report to HEFCE
(95 pages)
Research output: › Commissioned report (Published)