Andy Hamilton

Andy has been involved in the youth sector over the past 15 years as volunteer, practitioner, lecturer, trustee and researcher. Having graduated with a 1st class BSc Hons in Community Youth Work from Ulster University in 2012 he then worked in the youth sector as a practitioner for 6 years before returning to academia, bringing together his experience of youth work and peacebuilding in his doctoral research. He chaired YMCA Ireland from 2015-2017 and 2019-2020. Andy is an alumni of the YMCA Europe Roots for Reconciliation project and is involved in local and international peacebuilding with young people. He has lecturered on the Community Youth Work course at Ulster University and currently is the research associate for the Taking Boys Seriously project.

Andy's research interests include equity and equality in education, youth work policy and practice, Q methodology, participatory action research, youth in contested societies, applied social and political theory.

Andy completed his Ph.D. project in 2021. His research examines how youth work practitioners are oriented within the politics of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. The study integrates Bourdieusian social theory with the conceptual lens of morphological analysis, operationalised through Q methodology. The innovative and integrated mixed methods approach of Q methodology enables statistically significant shared viewpoints to be identified and is applicable to a broad range of research agendas that seeks to elicit differentiated shared perspectives within a specific field of policy and/or practice. The Ph.D. research contributes to theorising the under-theorised field of youth sector peacebuilding with findings relevant to wider civil society in developing a reflexive peacebuilding practice.