Sharlene Swartz

Sharlene Swartz, PhD, is a sociologist and senior research specialist in the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development programme at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Cambridge Centre for Commonwealth Education. She holds a Masters in Education at Harvard University and a PhD in the Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. Before embarking on graduate studies, Sharlene spent 12 years at a youth NGO where she pioneered peer-led social justice and lifeskills programmes. Her academic expertise includes social representations theory, peer education, poverty and inequality, and the sociologies of youth and morality. Her current research interests centre on young fathers, teachers who have sex with students, and extending Bourdieu’s notions of capital to include moral capital. In her spare time she boxes, scuba dives, swims and hikes. She is currently working on two new books concerning restitution in the South African context and the moral economy of alcohol in impoverished communities.