Dr. Katelin Albert
Position
Dr. Katelin Albert is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria. Prior to joining the department, Dr. Albert obtained her PhD from the University of Toronto. Her doctoral work looked at responsibility and the persistent tensions accompanying the HPV vaccine, sexual health, and sex education in contemporary society. She joined the Centre for Youth & Society as a research fellow at the beginning of this year.
Dr. Albert’s research focuses on genders, sexualities, sexual health, and sex education. With a foundation in medical and health sociology, her previous work includes a focus on gendered health technologies such as the HPV vaccine, along with more recent research on the COVID-19 vaccine. Her research explores sexual subjectivities across the life course, campus sexual harassment and violence, and student mental health. Dr. Albert is also committed to expanding the canon and practice of sociological and social theory; she prioritizes previously marginalized and excluded scholars, and in her teaching and research she emphasizes a wide variety of ways of knowing.
I looked at the relation between families as an institution, the state, and adolescents to understand how adolescents are being supported in their sexual health and sex education. Specifically, I looked at senses of self in adolescence and narratives around sexual health.
— Dr. Katelin Albert
Dr. Albert's research related to the HPV vaccine examines the shared responsibility and tensions that may accompany vaccines, sexual health, and sex education. Dr. Albert analyzes the relationships between adolescent girls, their parents, their broader families, the state, and the sex education they receive. She also explores the way health information and identities are constructed around sexual health and vaccine politics.
In May 2021, Dr. Albert received funding from Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Genome BC, and the BCCDC to investigate British Columbians’ concerns, opinions, and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccinations and public health initiatives, and what contributes to these beliefs. Based on in-depth interviews, this project aims to uncover what information people have, what they do with that information, and how it influences their attitudes towards vaccination (their health information practices). From those insights, Dr. Albert hopes to reveal the relationships between people’s views of personal and public safety, their attitudes towards vaccination, their behaviours during this pandemic, and the daily stressors and mental health needs that might lead them to draw on misinformation or adopt risky behaviours.
Recent publications
Albert, K., Brundage, J. S., Sweet, P., and Vandenberghe, F. (2020). Towards a Critical Realist Epistemology? Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 50(3), 357-372. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jtsb.12248
Albert, K. (2019). Beyond the Responsibility Binary: Analysing Maternal Responsibility in the HPV Vaccination Decision. Sociology of Health and Illness. 41(6): 1088–1103. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9566.12887
Albert, K. (2015). “Towards a New Normal: Emergent Elites and Feminist Scholarship.” The American Sociologist, 46: 29–39. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12108-014-9243-8.pdf