Ken McLaughlin is a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University where he teaches modules on sociology, social policy, social movements and social work. Prior to this he worked as a social worker in social services mental health team and as a support worker with homeless families.

His research is concerned with the way wider social and political concerns are reflected within social policy in general and social work in particular. His 2008 book ‘Social Work Politics and Society: from radicalism to orthodoxy’ highlights the implications of a risk averse culture and process of psychologisation on contemporary social work theory and practice. Similar themes are pursued in his 2102‘Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the psychology of recognition’, discusses identity politics and the way in which the fragility of the self has become the dominant way in which both personal and political claims are expressed. His work has also appeared in several academic journals and in the online political and current affairs journal spiked. His latest book ‘Empowerment: A critique’ will be published by Routledge in March 2016.