Rate My Professor Emily Keddell

Keddell's research specializations encompass child welfare inequalities, child protection decision-making, the politics of child protection, and algorithmic decision tools in child protection, employing a critical lens on intersections between structural conditions, policy contexts, systems, power dynamics, and micro-level practice. Key publications include 'Shifting power at the front door: State-community decision-making partnerships in child protection' (2026), 'Abolition, decolonisation and public health approaches to child protection: convergence, divergence and the new neoliberalism' (2025), 'If you thought it was going to make a difference, you'd do it straight away: School staff decisions to report to Child Protection' (2025), 'The ethics of predictive risk modelling in the Aotearoa/New Zealand child welfare context: Child abuse prevention or neo-liberal tool?' (2015, cited 180 times), 'Algorithmic justice in child protection: Statistical fairness, social justice and the implications for practice' (2019, cited 153 times), 'Current debates on variability in child welfare decision-making: A selected literature review' (2014, cited 142 times), and 'Reasoning processes in child protection decision making: Negotiating moral minefields and risky relationships' (2011, cited 131 times). She presented her Inaugural Professorial Lecture, 'Alternative futures in child protection: with and beyond the state,' in October 2025, addressing social inequities, disparities, decision-making, algorithmic ethics, and collaborative approaches with iwi/Māori organisations. Keddell contributes to the field through associate membership in the Child Poverty Action Group, founding membership in the Re-Imagining Social Work blog collective, editorial collective membership for the Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work Journal, associate editorship of Qualitative Social Work, and editorial board service for Practice, the sister journal of the British Journal of Social Work.