Dirk Schubotz grew up in Berlin and holds a Masters in Social Sciences (Dipl Soz) from Humboldt University Berlin and a PhD (Dr Phil) from Kassel University. Dirk has lived and worked in Northern Ireland since 2000. He initially held a Research Fellow post at Ulster University, before moving to Queen's University Belfast in 2003--first as a Research Fellow, and since 2012 as a lecturer/senior lecturer in Social Policy. Since 2003, Dirk has been a member of ARK (www.ark.ac.uk), directing ARK's annual Young Life and Times (YLT) study. Dirk's main research interests are children's young people's lives and their rights, sexual health, sexual and gender identities, and both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Dirk is particularly interested in participatory research methods and has undertaken a number of research projects with young people as coresearchers.
