Rate My Professor Katheryn Pascoe

Dr. Katheryn Margaret Pascoe is a Lecturer in the University of Otago's Social and Community Work Programme in the School of Social Sciences. She holds a PhD in social work and social policy from Ulster University, where she was an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie and DTA Co-Fund Fellow, an MA in International Development from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University, a Bachelor of Social Work, and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to her academic appointment, Pascoe qualified and practiced as a social worker in Aotearoa New Zealand, then pursued further studies in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Her doctoral research examined social workers' perspectives on relationship-based practice through a mixed-methods study of frontline practice in Northern Ireland. She has also contributed to the Northern Ireland Department of Health Reflections Project on mainstreaming community development in social work practice.

Pascoe's research specializations encompass bureaucracy and managerialism in social services, social work in disaster response and emergency relief, workforce development and wellbeing, community development in social work practice, and social policy with a focus on gender analysis. Her publications include Pascoe, K. M., & Stanley-Clarke, N. (2026). The challenges of contextualization: Critical reflections on communicating local value within a global study, International Social Work, 69(1), 139-144; Pascoe, K. M. (2025). Operationalizing the four expressions of power as a framework of analysis in qualitative social work research, Social Work Research, 49(2), 134-139; McLean, N., & Pascoe, K. M. (2025). Soft-spoken and sympathetic: Gendered news-media social worker narratives in Aotearoa New Zealand, Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 37(2), 18-31; Pascoe, K. M., Hawthorne-Steele, I., O'Brien, F., & Moreland, R. (2025). From rhetoric to reality: Social work leading change through learning and implementing community development approaches, Practice, 37(4), 333-350; Pascoe, K. M. (2024). Subverting, challenging and working within bureaucratic and managerialist systems: strategies for upholding relationship-based social work practice, Journal of Social Work Practice; and Pascoe, K. M. (2024). The impact of bureaucracy and managerialism on relationship-based practise: A mixed methods study of frontline social work in Northern Ireland, Social Policy & Administration. With 345 citations on ResearchGate across 29 publications, her work influences social work education, practice, and policy, particularly in navigating bureaucratic challenges and enhancing workforce sustainability. She has delivered verbal presentations at international conferences, including the International Federation of Social Workers Europe Regional Conference in 2025.