Paula Alonso has a PhD in Social and Behavioural Sciences from the Universidade da Coruña. After completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, she specialised in international migration and graduated with an Official Master’s Degree in International Migration: Research, Migration Policy and Intercultural Mediation from the Universidade da Coruña (UDC). She is currently working as a research associate at the Universidad de La Laguna as part of the Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship programme. For seven years, she was a research officer with the Societies in Movement Research Team (ESOMI) and a member of the teaching and research staff on modules in the Department of Sociology at the Universidade da Coruña and Universidade de Vigo.

Paula’s research focuses on the use of educational and social times by migrant teenagers; educational strategies employed by migrant families; processes of socialisation among migrant children and young people; and education policy. Her PhD thesis, ‘Adolescencias migrantes a contracorriente:  tiempos de vida y escuela en el alumnado de Enseñanza Secundaria Obligatoria’ [Migrant teenagers against the current: life and school times among secondary school students], was awarded a cum laude distinction and an international mention.  She was a research trainee on the FPI (Research Staff Training) programme, working with the Social Pedagogy and Environmental Education (SEPA) research group at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.

Over the course of her research career, Paula has trained at seven institutions in Spain and beyond: Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century (ISS21), University College Cork (Ireland); Centro de Infancia y Mundo Urbano (CIIMU), Barcelona (Spain); Instituto de Investigación en Educación (IEE), Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural de Xalapa (Mexico); Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA); Instituto de Planejamento Urbano e Regional (NIEM), Universidade Federal de Río de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); and Escola de Artes e Ciencias Humanas (EACH), Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brazil).

She has participated in two research projects belonging to the Horizon 2020 programme, INCASI-H2020 and Welcoming Spaces-H2020, and a JPI project (PCI2021-121924). She has been a member of the research teams for five research projects under the Spanish National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation (FEM2015-6714R, FEM2011-26210, PSI2008-0436S, EJ2007-63179), one national project funded by AECID and three projects funded by the Xunta de Galicia.

Paula’s publications include Alonso Pardo, P. & Diz, C. (2021) ‘La ciudad adolescente: escuela, vida cotidiana y usos del tiempo y del espacio en estudiantes autóctonos migrantes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria’; Alonso Pardo, P. (2021) ‘Las experiencias de la migración ante el espejo del Estado’; Alonso, P. (2014) ‘El impacto de las políticas educativas en la carrera formativa de jóvenes marroquíes’, in Natalia Ribas Mateos & Sofía Laiz (eds.) Movilidades adolescentes: elementos teóricos emergentes en la ruta entre Marruecos y Europa. Barcelona: Bellaterra; Alonso Pardo, P., Varela Crespo, L. & Teijeiro Bóo, Y. (2011) ‘El valor del tiempo en los procesos educativos de integración e inclusión social’, Educación Social: Revista de Intervención Socioeducativa. Barcelona,  pp. 74-83. ISSN: 1135-8629; and Alonso, P. & Villares Varela, M. (2009) ‘El empresariado étnico en A Coruña: redes socio-espaciales de su asentamiento desde la etnografía urbana’. Zainak: ciudades globales y culturas locales. Donostia, vol. 32, pp. 1185- 1207. ISBN: 978-84-8419-187-2 (volume II); 978-84-8419-189-6 (O.C.).

p.alonso@udc.es