We’re pleased to announce that the winners of the 2020 Sociological Research Online SAGE Prize for Innovation and/or Excellence are:

Michael Donnelly, Alex Baratta, Sol Gamsu – A sociolinguistic perspective on accent and social mobility in the UK teaching profession (watch them discussing their winning paper below).

Congratulations to Michael, Alex and Sol on their winning paper. Please also find some comments on the winning paper from the judging panel:

‘I thought it was remarkable for the authors to merge different studies, take a novel look and discuss how accents shape social (im)mobility. In their conclusion, the authors also propose how their conceptual framework can be used in other studies such as youth studies. Although I’d have liked the authors to provide a more detailed methodological discussion, I thought overall their idea was novel and clear’.

‘I very much enjoyed reading this paper which introduces the prospect of a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding social mobility. The paper is very well written, theoretically strong and embedded in wider literature. It draws on other studies conducted by the authors but sets out a fine grained analysis. This informs their argument that a multidisciplinary approach adds to prospects for understanding social mobility’.

Thank you to our winners and nominees for providing such a strong field for the judges to choose from. On behalf of the SRO editorial team, the BSA, and SAGE Publications, congratulations to Michael, Alex and Sol.