Dr Anna Orrnert

Professional biography

Dr. Anna Orrnert is a Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at the Open University. Prior to joining the Open University, Anna held lectureships at Newman University in Birmingham (2018-2022) where she taught on the Working with Children, Young People and Families programme and the Foundation Year in Social Sciences. She also worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham’s International Development Department (2005-2008) and as a Researcher for the Conflict Analysis Research Centre at the University of Kent at Canterbury (2008-2010). Anna holds a BA in International Relations from Tufts University, MPhil in International Peace Studies from Trinity College Dublin and PhD in Sociology from London Metropolitan University.

Research interests

Anna’s research interests and expertise relate to intersectionality, youth transitions to adulthood and power. Her doctoral research examined young women’s transitions to adulthood at the intersection of gender, social class and race in the post-industrial city of Birmingham. Using an ethnographic approach, this explored how young women navigated various spheres of transition including education, employment and family formation. She is currently developing a longitudinal study based on her doctoral research.

Between 2019-2021 Anna worked on ‘The world in one place: learning together in a multicultural city’, an oral history and archives research project about primary school life and education in Birmingham between the 1960s - 1980s. This was led by Future Seed CIC, a community interest company that she co-founded, and was funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant.

At Newman University, she was involved in several student-staff partnership projects (student-led research collaborations intended to develop aspects of university life that matter to them).

Whilst working in the international development sector, she contributed frequently as a freelance researcher (2012-2020) to the Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) programme at the Institute of Development Studies and the GSDRC at the University of Birmingham. This research supported the work of governmental development agencies such as the UK Department for International Development and AusAid.

Between 2009-2011, she worked on the European Commission-funded International Civil Society Forum on Conflicts, which researched the role of transnational communities in preventing and resolving conflicts.

Anna also worked as a researcher on a pilot project in Liberia (2008) for Mediators Beyond Borders, helping to develop a programme to support the integration of former child soldiers into civilian communities after the end of the civil war.

Teaching interests

Together with Dr. Naomi Holford, Anna is currently co-chairing E232 (Exploring Childhood and Youth) in presentation. She has contributed to production on E320 (Contemporary research with children and young people).