Dr Adrian Leguina (BSc Universidad Diego Portales, MSc Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, PhD University of Manchester) joined Loughborough University in 2017 as Lecturer in Quantitative Social Sciences and as a member of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture.
Adrian’s scholarly interests lie at the intersection of sociology of cultural consumption, social stratification, and quantitative research methods. He completed his Ph.D. in Social Change at the University of Manchester in 2015. His research, composed of a set of articles, critically examined how music taste is socially structured. These are published in renowned peer-review journals (Bulletin of Sociological Methodology, Journal of Consumer Culture and Sociological Research Online). This work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the North West Doctoral Training Centre and was also awarded by the Advanced Quantitative Methods enhanced research stipend.
Prior to joining Loughborough, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Understanding Everyday Participation project (5-year AHRC and Creative Scotland funded project), extending his research to a broader array of cultural domains such as non-artistic and ordinary cultural engagement, and its relationship with social networks, social and geographical mobilities, and changes across the life course.
He also maintains research collaborations with numerous institutions, including Tampere University (Finland), University of Niš (Serbia) and University of Copenhagen (Denmark). Adrian currently serves as executive board member of the European Sociological Association Research Network on Sociology of Consumption (RN5) and is co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Study Group on Consumption. He is also member of the editorial board of the journal Sociological Research Online.
Dr Leguina is currently working on a reconceptualization of cultural capital and identities, interrogating existing national large-scale surveys in combination with qualitative data, and highlighting their relevance to understand social and digital inequalities, as well as life course trajectories, education, politics, and everyday experiences.
As a (quantitative) methodologist and sociologist, Adrian is motivated by the methodological challenge behind the quantification of the value of culture, everyday practices and identities as an element of social distinction (in the Bourdieusian sense), as well as their defining role on people’s trajectories.
Moreover, he is particularly interested in knowing the (reciprocal) impact of methods on social theories and how this affects the way we operationalize social concepts. His research contributes to the empirical dialogue between perspectives and methods. Further work in collaboration with scholars around the globe has extended Dr Leguina’s research interests to different domains such as social stratification and mobilities, teaching practices in music education, political values, media consumption and internet usage, and social issues in the South East of Europe (sustainable consumption, modernization and gender).
In terms of research methods, Adrian is particularly interested on the innovative application of multivariate statistics, particularly under the Geometrical Data Analysis and Combinatorial Inference paradigm (multiple correspondence analysis, multiple factor analysis, classification techniques), as well as more traditional statistical modelling (regression models, structural equation models) for the analysis of large quantitative and textual data. He is also familiar with statistical techniques for psychometric assessment of surveys.
Externally funded research projects
2022-23, Co-Investigator, “Novel perceptions: Towards an inclusive canon”, AHRC.
2020-22 Co-Investigator, “Digital Access to Arts and Culture Beyond COVID-19”, AHRC.
Adrian teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules, covering core research methods and contemporary sociology, as well as specialist modules on consumption and inequalities.
Global, Social and Cultural Change (SSA002)
Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods (SSA006)
Globalization and its Consequences (SSB026)
Consumption, Culture and Everyday Lives (SSC035)
Digital Economies (SSP318)
Researching Communication 1: Media Users and Cultural Institutions (SSP503)
Dr Leguina would welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.
- Sociology of consumption and inequalities: Including cultural consumption, and consumption of technological and digital goods, social media, internet (digital divides).
- The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu: Any topics making use of Bourdieu’s theoretical and/or empirical contributions.
- Advanced quantitative and mixed methods: Particularly geometric data analysis (correspondence analysis, etc), classification, factor and latent variable modelling, regression models, text mining.
- Social class, mobilities and identities: Particularly when including some of the above.
- Other topics that could make an innovative contribution to any of the above if consistent with Adrian’s expertise (see Publications).
Current postgraduate research students
David Graf (2021-) “Taste and National Identity in Social Practices of Art Evaluation.”
Li Yan (2021-) “The Formation of Trust in the Sharing Economy in China”
Xiaobin Zhou (2021-) “More than just a game—A Bourdieusian analysis of player habitus, capital and social inequalities in the field of video games.”
Recent postgraduate research students
Aysegul Dilbirligi (2017-) " Attitudes to parenting in Turkey and the UK."
Yi Xu (2015-) "The Formation of National Identity beyond Nations: The Role of Supra-national and National Identity in the Genesis of Chinese Society."
- Mihelj, S., Leguina, A., & Downey, J. (2019). Culture is digital: Cultural participation, diversity and the digital divide. New Media and Society, doi:10.1177/1461444818822816.
- Poblete, C., Leguina, A., Masquiarán, N., & Carreño, B. (2019). Informal and non formal music experience: power, knowledge and learning in music teacher education in Chile. International Journal of Music Education. doi:10.1177/0255761419836015.
- Cunningham, N., Miles, A., & Leguina, A. (2018). ‘The ghosts of class’: Space, waste and hope in the ex-industrial north. In A world laid waste?: Responding to the social, cultural and political consequences of globalisation (pp. 43-67) doi:10.4324/9781315276489.
- Miles, A., & Leguina, A. (2018). Socio-spatial mobilities and narratives of class identity in Britain. British Journal of Sociology, 69(4), 1063-1095. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12624.
- Leguina, A., Arancibia-Carvajal, S., & Widdop, P. (2017). Musical preferences and technologies: Contemporary material and symbolic distinctions criticized. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), 242-264. doi:10.1177/1469540515586870.
- Leguina, A., & Miles, A. (2017). Fields of participation and lifestyle in England: Revealing the regional dimension from a reanalysis of the taking part survey using multiple factor analysis. Cultural Trends, 26(1), 4-17. doi:10.1080/09548963.2017.1274356.
- Leguina, A., Widdop, P., & Tampubolon, G. (2016). The global omnivore: Identifying musical taste groups in austria, england, israel and serbia. Sociological Research Online, 21(3) doi:10.5153/sro.4020.
- Leguina, A. (2015). Musical distinctions in England – understanding cultural homology and omnivourism through a methods comparison. BMS Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/ Bulletin De Methodologie Sociologique, 126(1), 28-45. doi:10.1177/0759106315572563.