Victoria Clarke

Victoria Clarke is an UK based chartered psychologist and an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Critical Psychology at the University of the West England, Bristol. Her work focuses on qualitative psychology and critical psychology, and her background and training is in the fields of women studies, feminist psychology, LGBTQ psychology, and qualitative methods. She is particularly known for her ongoing collaboration with Professor Virginia Braun around qualitative methods. Braun and Clarke developed a widely cited approach to thematic analysis in 2006 and have published extensively around thematic analysis since then. They have also collaborated on an award-winning qualitative research textbook and more recently have published around the qualitative story completion method with the Story Completion Research Group.

Clarke's main area of focus is qualitative research and particularly the reflexive approach to thematic analysis she has developed with Professor Virginia Braun at The University of Auckland. The 2006 paper in which they originally outlined their approach has over 59,000 Google Scholar citations and according to Google Scholar is the most cited academic paper published in 2006. An open access version is available from the University of the West of England Research Repository. Braun and Clarke have a thematic analysis website at The University of Auckland. This includes an extensive reading list, FAQs and links to their lectures on thematic analysis on YouTube. They have written numerous chapters, editorials, commentaries and encyclopedia entries on thematic analysis.

She joined the University of the West of England as a lecturer in Social Psychology in 2003. Currently Clarke is an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Critical Psychology at the University of the West England, Bristol. Her research and teaching is centered around qualitative methods, queer psychology, human sexuality and gender studies.

Victoria Clarke completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at Brunel University; she graduated in July 1997. After graduation, Clarke started a PhD in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University supervised by Professor Celia Kitzinger (and later Professor Jonathan Potter and Professor Sue Wilkinson). Her PhD - in women's studies and psychology - focused on lesbian and gay parenting. This research further advanced the intersection between queer psychology and qualitative methods - she explored the social construction of LGBT parenting from both a queer studies and critical psychological perspective. Clarke graduated from Loughborough in July 2002. Lastly, Clarke got her postgraduate certificate in higher education at University of the West England, Bristol, graduating in July 2004.

Between October 1997 and March 2002, Clarke was a PhD student in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. Her PhD research explored the social construction of lesbian and gay parenting - in psychology and mainstream media. She published papers on television talk show debates about same-sex parenting, on arguments used by opponents of same-sex parenting to justify their opposition to equality for lesbian and gay families and arguments about children's need for male role models and 'concerns' about homophobic bullying. She also published several papers critically exploring the representation of same-sex parenting in psychological research - exploring themes of sameness and difference, the rhetoric of pseudoscience and constructions of lesbians as parents in psychological literature from 1886–2006.