Alex Harris

I joined University College Birmingham in February 2023 as a Lecturer in Sports Management. Prior to this, I taught at Nottingham Trent University, where I am currently completing a PhD exploring gender inequality in sports journalism. I have also previously taught at Newman University, and the University of Worcester, across a range of subjects covering areas of Sports Business Management, the Sociology of Sport, and Qualitative Research Methods.

Before teaching in higher education, I worked in a variety of roles across journalism, marketing and communications. After gaining prestigious work placements at Sky News and the BBC, I worked in sport media across football, the Netball Super League, and the British Basketball League. I have also worked as a freelance sports journalist, and have written for national and local newspapers.

After this, I moved into education support roles, working on Widening Participation projects at the University of Gloucestershire, where I worked supporting non-traditional students entering HE, working closely with the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) and The National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL). I have also worked with Walsall College supporting the Aspire to HE programme to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds across Birmingham and the Black Country to fulfil their potential.

• Level 4: Brand U
• Level 5: Graduate Advantage
• Digital Media and Marketing
• Digital Media and Marketing for Football, Investigative Journalism
• Level 6: Sports and eSports Marketing

My research interests focus on the Sociology of Sport, with a primary focus on social inequalities. I am currently completing my PhD exploring gender inequality in UK sports journalism.

Conference Presentations 

Harris, A (2024, January) ’I don't know if I'd like to work in the men's game. I'd actually like to help continue to grow the women's game’: An investigation of female sports journalists’ experiences of working in the UK.’ Sports Media Identity Network Conference, Northumbria University, London.

Harris, A (2024, April) ‘“If I say something sport wise, I'm questioned on it”: The language use of UK women sports journalists’. The15th Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics’ Special Interest Group for Language, Gender and Sexuality: Language, Gender and Sexuality in Sport: De Montfort University, Online.

• The British Association of Applied Linguistics’ Special Interest Group for Language, Gender and Sexuality
• The British Sociological Association
• The International Sociology of sport Association (ISSA)