Dr Valerie Wright

Honorary Fellow in History

Biography

Background

I am a historian of modern Scotland with particular expertise in gender, social, urban and political history.

Previous experience:

  • Lecturer in Modern Scottish History, History, University of Edinburgh
  • Research Associate - Leverhulme Trust funded project 'Building a Modern Scotland: The New Towns, c. 1947-2017' based in History at the University of Glasgow. https://newtownsscotland.eca.ed.ac.uk 
  • Research Fellow - ESRC funded project 'Reimagining the Future in Older Age' based in Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling.
  • Research Associate - Leverhulme Trust funded 'Employment, politics and culture in Scotland, 1955-2015', Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow.
  • Lecturer in Modern Scottish History, Scottish History, University of Glasgow
  • Research Associate - Leverhulme Trust Funded  'Housing, Everyday Life and Wellbeing over the long term: Glasgow 1950-1975', Urban Studies and History at the University of Glasgow
  • Post-Doctoral Research Assistant - Leverhulme Trust Funded 'Jute & Dundee: The Management of Industrial Decline', Economics and History at the University of Dundee

 

 

Qualifications

I completed my PhD entitled 'Women’s Organisations and Feminism in Interwar Scotland' in the Department of Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow. 

 

Responsibilities & affiliations

I served on the judging panel for the Saltire Society's Scottish History Book of the Year, I am a member of the Writing Labour History in Brexit Britain network, and serve on the  steering committee of Scottish Labour History Society. 

I am a member of the Histories of Gender and Sexuality Research Group at the University of Edinburgh and remain an affiliate member of the Centre for Gender History at the University of Glasgow. 

I also served on the Board of Future Paisley, leading cultural regeneration of the town and am a member of the Research and Ethics Committee of Paisley Museum Reimagined

Undergraduate teaching

At Edinburgh I taught on the following undergraduate courses:

  • Course Convenor SCHI10010 Contemporary Scotland 
  • Course Contribution HIST08042 Themes in Scottish History
  • Course Contribution HIST08044 Introduction to Historiography 
  • Course Contribution ECSH08043 Global Economy Since 1750
  • Course Contribution HIST08036 The History of Edinburgh
  • Pathway tutor Historical Skills and Methods I  
  • Pathway tutor Historical Skills and Methods II 
  • Dissertation supervision 

I also acted as the Deputy School Academic Conduct Officer for 2025-26 as well as a Cohort Lead for Year 4 (2024-25) and Year 3 (2025-26)

Postgraduate teaching

At Edinburgh I taught on the following post-graduate courses:

  • Course Convenor PGHC11111 Contemporary Scotland
  • Pathway tutor Historical Research: Skills and Sources
  • Dissertation supervision

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Research summary

Broadly my interests focus on social history in postwar Britain and Scotland. I am particularly interested in the following themes:

  • class and identity
  • housing and activism
  • urban change, redevelopment and regeneration
  • deindustrialisaiton
  • women and work

 

Past research interests

- older adult's perceptions of future time and hopes and desires for the future - The effects and legacy of the processes of deindustrialisation on communities and individuals in post-war Scotland - The changing structure of women’s employment in Britain in the post-war years - Women’s engagement in politics (broadly defined) and role in political change in twentieth century Britain - The long-term impact of the residualisation of council housing on the lack of affordable housing in the present day - Children’s use of urban space and the ways in which this was altered by urban planning in the post war years, especially with regards to play

In addition to being interviewed for a variety of print media including The Herald, The Scotsman and The Evening Times:

Monographs

  • A. Fair, L. Abrams, K. Breen, M. Glendinning, D. Watters and V.Wright, Building Modern Scotland: A Social and Architectural History of the Scottish New Towns since 1947 (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 9 January 2025). ISBN 9781350401709.
  • J. Phillips, V. Wright and J. Tomlinson, Deindustrialisation and the Moral Economy in Scotland since 1955 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021) ISBN 9781474479240.
  • L. Abrams, A. Kearns, B. Hazley and V. Wright, Glasgow: High-Rise Homes, Estates and Communities in the Post-War Period (London: Routledge, 2020) ISBN 9781138317093.
  • J. Tomlinson, C. Morelli and V. Wright, The Decline of Jute: Managing Industrial Change, (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011) ISBN 9781848931244.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • M. Lovatt, Gavin Crichton, Valerie Wright and Jade French, ‘Changing the Script: Using Forum Theatre to Reimagine the Future in Later Life’ International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, (Advance Access) (2026)https://doi.org/10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.6223
  • V. Wright and M. Lovatt, ‘Thinking about the future in older age’ Journal of Ageing Studies, 71 (2024) 1-7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101282
  • J. French, M. Lovatt and V. Wright ‘Utopian Methods: Reimagining age expectations and intergenerational relationships through reader responses to Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book (1972)’ special issue on ‘Age Transitions’ in Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8 (2024) https://doi.org/10.7146/ageculturehumanities.v8i.150067
  • J. Clarke, A. Clark and V. Wright, 'Introduction: Gender and Deindustrialization: Perspectives from European case studies’, International Labor and Working-Class History, vol. 105, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547924000085   
  • V. Wright and A. Fair, ‘The opportunity and desire to buy: owner-occupation in Scotland’s new towns, c. 1950-80’, Contemporary British History 38(2) (2024) 219–44 (published online 8 January 2024) https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2023.2294972 
  • J. French, M. Lovatt and V. Wright, ‘Understanding nuance and ambivalence in intergenerational relationships through fiction’ The Gerontologist (published online April 2023)https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnad051
  • V. Wright, ‘‘Housing problems … are political dynamite’: Housing disputes in Glasgow c. 1971 to the present day’, Sociological Research Online, Rapid Response 26 (2021) (published online June 2018) https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418780038
  • V. Wright, J. Phillips and J. Tomlinson, ‘Defending the right to work: the 1983 Timex workers’ occupation in Dundee’ Labour History Review 86(1)(2021), pp. 63-90 https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2021.4
  • B. Hazley, L. Abrams, A. Kearns and V. Wright, ‘Place, Memory and the British High Rise Experience: negotiating social change on the Wyndford Estate, 1962-2015’, Contemporary British History  35(1) (2021), pp.72-99 (published online November 2020) https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2020.1845148 
  • J. Phillips, V. Wright and J. Tomlinson, ‘Being a ‘Clydesider’ in the Age of Deindustrialisation: skilled male identity and economic restructuring in the West of Scotland since the 1960s’ Labor History 61(2)(2020), pp. 151-69 (published online September 2019) https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2019.1666973
  • J. Phillips, V. Wright and J. Tomlinson, ‘Deindustrialization, the Linwood Car Plant and Scotland’s Political Divergence from England in the 1960s and 1970s’ Twentieth Century British History30:3(2019), pp. 399–423 (published online March 2019) https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwz005
  • A. Kearns, V. Wright, L. Abrams and B. Hazley, ‘Slum Clearance and Relocation: A Reassessment of Social Outcomes Combining Short- term and Long-term Perspectives’, ‘The long view’: A Special Edition of Housing Studies 34(2)(2019) pp. 201-25 (published online December 2017) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2017.1409342
  • V. Wright, A. Kearns, L. Abrams and B. Hazley, ‘Planning for Play: Seventy years of ineffective public policy? The example of Glasgow, Scotland’, Planning Perspectives Volume 34(2) (2019), pp. 243-63 (published online October 2017) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2017.1393627.
  • L. Abrams, B. Hazley, V. Wright and A. Kearns, ‘Aspiration, agency and the production of new selves in a Scottish new town, c.1947-c.2016’ Twentieth Century British History 29(4)(2018), pp. 576-604 (published online May 2018) https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwy006
  • B. Hazley, V. Wright, L. Abrams and A. Kearns, ‘‘People and their homes rather than housing in the usual sense’: locating the tenant’s voice in Homes in High Flats’, Special Issue: Pearl Jephcott: Reflections, Resurgence and Replications Women's History Review 28(5)(2019), pp. 728-745 (published online May 2018) https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2018.1472890
  • V. Wright, ‘‘Tinkering at a local level’: Unemployment, State intervention and community agency in Ferguslie Park, Paisley c. 1972-1977’, Scottish Labour History 53 (2018), pp. 192-211.
  • E. Breitenbach and V. Wright, ‘Women as Active Citizens: Glasgow and Edinburgh, c. 1918-1939’, Women’s History Review, Special Issue: ‘Feminism and Feminists After Suffrage’, 23(3)(2014) pp. 401-20. doi:10.1080/09612025.2013.820602.
  • V. Wright, ‘A Women’s Industry? The Role of Women in the Workforce of the Dundee Jute Industry c. 1945-1979’, Special Issue: ‘The Global Business of Jute: Markets, Firms, Gender and Political Economy’, International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 8(2/3) (2014), pp. 110-25. doi:10.1504/IJMCP.2014.063847.
  • C. J. Morelli and V. Wright (Guest Editors), ‘Introduction’, Special Issue: ‘The Global Business of Jute: Markets, Firms, Gender and Political Economy’, International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 8(2/3)(2014).
  • V. Wright, ‘The Prevention of Rural Depopulation: Housing and the Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes, c. 1917-1939’, Twentieth Century British History, 23(3)(2012), pp. 336-58 doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwr048.
  • C. J. Morelli, J. Tomlinson and V. Wright, ‘Managing Competition: Government and Industry Relationships in the Jute Industry 1957-1963’, Business History, 54(5)(2012), pp. 765-82. doi:10.1080/00076791.2011.631129.
  • V. Wright, ‘Education for Active Citizenship: Women’s Organisations in Interwar Scotland’, History of Education, 38(3)(2009), pp. 419-36. doi:10.1080/00467600902855454.

Book chapters

  • V. Wright and J. Tomlinson, ‘Nations as Regions: the Scottish Case’ in R. Martin (ed.) The Evolution of UK Regional Policy (London: Routledge, Regions and Cities Series, 2026) ISBN 9781041098768
  • V. Wright, ‘Castlemilk Claimants Union and local community activism on the urban fringe in Glasgow in the 1970s’ in T. Verlan and C. Wicke (eds) Urban Activism in Western Europe from the 1950s to 1980s (London: Palgrave, 2024) ISBN 978-3-031-57641-6
  • V. Wright, ‘Making their own fun: children’s play in high-rise estates in Glasgow in the 1960s and 1970s’, in S. Pooley and J. Taylor (eds) Children’s Experiences of Welfare in Modern Britain (London: University of London Press, 2021) ISBN 978-1-912702-86-2
  • A. Hughes and V. Wright, ‘What did the rent strikers do next? Women and Housing struggles in Interwar Scotland’ in N. Gray (Eds) Rent and its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle(Transforming Capitalism Series) (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) ISBN 978-1-78660-574-0.
  • J. Clark and V. Wright ‘Urban Regeneration in Glasgow: Looking to the past to build the future? The case of the ‘New Gorbals’’ in J. Clark and N. Wise (eds.) Urban Renewal, Community and Participation: Theory, Policy and Practice (The Urban Book Series) (New York: Springer, 2018) ISBN 978-3-319-72311-2. (doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72311-2_3)
  • V. Wright, ‘Juteopolis and After: Women and Work in Twentieth-Century Dundee’ in J. Tomlinson and C. Whatley (eds), Jute No More: Transforming Dundee (Dundee: DUP, 2011), pp. 132-62, ISBN 9781845860905.

Books

  • Valerie Wright, Jim Main, Gerry Mooney and Kirsty Turkington, ‘Equal Pay or We Walk Away’: The Story of Glasgow’s Historic Equal Pay Dispute (Govanhill Baths Community Development Trust in association with The Open University Scotland: Glasgow, August 2026)

Policy Papers

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