Ian Shaw

I grew up in the Highfields area of Leicester. After being a mediocre performer at a splendid boys grammar school (Wyggeston Boys, Leicester), I read sociology at Sheffield University. Five years as a probation officer led on to a career as an academic in Cardiff, York and for a while in Denmark and Singapore. I was the first chair of the European Social Work Research Association. For a period from 2016 I was S. R. Nathan Professor in Social Work at the National University of Singapore. I was lead editor for the Sage Handbook of Social Work Research (2010, Sage) – one of the more ambitious publishing projects I have been involved with. A complete rewriting of an earlier book, Evaluating in Practice (Ashgate) was published in 2011, and, for the same publishers I completed two retrospective collection of my essays, the latter out in 2023. I see the former as the most original argument I have accomplished in my career. I initiated the international journal Qualitative Social Work. Among various continuing interests my current preoccupations focus on understanding the nature of social work as an applied social science in relation to disciplines like sociology; and the history of social work and research, also in their relations to the social science field. I have been researching the life of Ada Eliot Sheffield, who spanned the worlds of social work, sociology and was the eldest sister of T S Eliot; and also that of W Leslie Land, a Leicester minister, of whom I had a book in 2023. I completed a creative writing masters after retiring, and write some poetry.