Sandra Torres

Professor i sociologi, ssk socialgerontologi vid Sociologiska institutionen; Lärare och forskare

Telefon:
018-471 51 71
E-post:
sandra.torres@uu.se
Besöksadress:
Engelska parken
Thunbergsvägen 3H
Postadress:
Box 624
751 26 UPPSALA

Ladda ned kontaktuppgifter

Akademiska meriter:
FD, prof. i sociologi 10, ssk socialgerontologi

Kort presentation

Sandra Torres holds a Ph.D. and is Prof. of Sociology & Chair of Social Gerontology. "In recognition of outstanding achievement and exemplary contributions to the field of gerontology", she was awarded Fellow status by the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), and is Editor-in-Chief of Ageing & Society. GSA awarded the Richard M. Kalish Innovative Publication Award to her for Ethnicity & Old Age: Expanding our Imagination. She is a member of the (Swedish) Royal Society of Sciences.

Biografi

Prof. Torres is a sociologist of aging who has conducted numerous studies that problematize old age-related constructs, shed critical light on commonly used methods in health and social care and deconstruct some of the taken for granted assumptions that guide policy and practice for the older segments of our populations. This is why she is often regarded as a critical gerontologist. Sandra's main scholarly contributions have aimed to expand the social gerontological imagination through the use of knowledge gathered in the sociology of ethnicity/ race and migration.

Prior to joining the professorial team of the Department of Sociology, Sandra held (between 2008-2012) an (adjunct) professorship in rehabilitation and aging (at Oslo University College in Norway; an institution that is now called Oslo Met), and a professorship in social work (between 2009-2010) at Mälardalen University in Sweden, where she - between 2025-2026 - holds a visiting professorship (between 2025-2026).

Since 2021, Sandra is the Editor-in-Chief of Ageing & Society; one of the leading journals in the socio-behavioral sciences of aging. Between 2018-2023 (June), Sandra was the President of the Research Committee on Aging of the Int'l. Sociological Association (also known as ISA's RC-11). She has also held the position of President of the Socio-Behavioral Section of the Int'l. Association of Gerontology & Geriatrics: European Region (IAGG-ER), and was, as such, a member of the Executive Committee of IAGG-ER. Between 2006-2021, she co-convened the Gerontological Society of America's Interest Group on International Aging and Migration.

Her latest sole authored book - which is entitled Ethnicity & Old Age: Expanding our Imagination (Policy Press, 2019) - received the Gerontological Society of America's Richard M. Kalish Innovative Publication Book Award in 2021. She has co-edited collections like the Handbook on Migration and Ageing (Elgar Publishing, 2023), and the one entitled Critical Gerontology for Social Workers (Policy Press, 2022), and has also contributed to several of the key handbooks/ encyclopedias in the field of aging. Her latest publications in Swedish include a co-edited collection entitled Äldrevård och omsorgen i migrationens tidevarv (published by Studentlitteratur in 2021).

Past achievements (highlights):

At the national level and in terms of some of the latest policy contributions that Prof. Torres has made, it is perhaps interesting to mention that Sandra was one of the scientific experts who worked on the policy plan on eldercare quality that the the Swedish Government launched in 2017 (which in Swedish is called the SOU Nationella Kvalitetsplan för Äldreomsorgen). At the European level, Sandra was one of the first emerging scholars to receive the ERA-AGE grant known as FLARE: Future Leader of Aging Research in Europe; a grant she received to study the intersection of migration and aging while specifically focusing on eldercare. Thus, it is perhaps understandable that she was involved in the research networks that first launched European research on the intersection of migration and aging back in the mid 2000's (such as those funded by the European Research Foundation which was the predecessor to the COST-framework).

Most recently, Sandra was a member of both the Steering and the Management Committee for the COST- ACTION on old age and social exclusion known as ROSENet; a network that brought together 180+ researchers from 41 countries and had funding between 2016-2020. Together with Prof. Ariela Lowenstein (Haifa University, Israel), she co-led the Working Group on Civic Exclusion in that COST-funded network.

Sandra sits also on the Editorial Board of established peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Aging Studies and Ethnicity & Health, and has also had editorial board commitments for other journals, such as Vulnerable Groups and Inclusion and Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift. She was also one of the founders of, and Associate Editors for, one of the first open-access journals in gerontology: the International Journal of Ageing and Later Life for many years, and served also in the editorial board of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences and Social Policy & Society.

In terms of contributions made to Uppsala University, and the Department of Sociology (which she joined in 2010), it is perhaps worth mentioning that Sandra co-founded (in 2012) - together Prof. em. Rafael Lindqvist - the Welfare Research Group; a group that brings together researchers who are trained in either sociology or social work, and conduct research on inequality and welfare, and that welcomes every year several visiting researchers from around the world (e.g., UK, Spain, Slovenia, Germany and Japan to name but a few). She co-lead this group between 2012-2020 (at first with Prof. Lindqvist, and then with Prof. Hannah Bradby). Since 2023 she is back in that co-leading role with Prof. Matilda Hellman who joined this department in 2023. For more information on this group see: The Welfare Research Group – Department of Sociology – Uppsala University

Sandra was Head of Department between 2020-2021, and Deputy Head of Department between 2014-2018. It is in the later capacity that she played an instrumental role in securing the university funding necessary to establish the Centre for Social Work (CESAR), the chair in social work as well as the PhD program in that discipline. This center operated out of the Department of Sociology for many years since education in social work was originally primarily offered by sociologists working on social care and welfare-related issues in this university. This center was re-named the Institute for Social Work in 2023 and it is now a department of its own.

Between 2010-2019, Prof. Torres led the Social Gerontology Group which was comprised of researchers in social gerontology from Uppsala University, Stockholm University and Gävle University College. This group was founded by the late Prof. Lars Tornstam back in the mid 1990's, who held the first Chair in Social Gerontology at Uppsala University. It is that Chair that Prof. Torres now holds. As a professor who is committed to the training and mentoring of new generation of scholars who can think creatively and critically about taken-for-granted matters within various fileds, Sandra has supervised close to 15 doctoral students specializing in an array of sociological topics as well as in aging and migration at the intersection of health and social care.

Forskning

Sandra's research has often (but not always) focused on the intersection of migration and aging. Funding for her work has often (but not solely) come from two research councils for social sciences, i.e. the Swedish Research Council (or Vetenskapsrådet in Swedish), the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (known as FORTE in Swedish). Her most recent grant has been awarded by the latter for the Swedish part of a five country European project on older people's civic participation, known as CIVEX (which stands for 'Exclusion from civic engagement of a diverse older population: features, experiences and policy implications'). CIVEX was also funded as part of the Joint Programming Initiative More Years, Better Lives, which is a collaboration between European and national research programs, which is why FORTE funds the Swedish part of the project. The CIVEX consortium includes five European countries selected to represent contrasting welfare state regimes and socio-cultural contexts: Anglo-Saxon (UK), Continental (Belgium), Nordic (Sweden and Finland) and Southern (Spain). As a whole, CIVEX is lead by Dr. Rodrigo Serrat (Univ. of Barcelona); see www.civex.eu for more information. Prof. Torres leads the Swedish team o, and together with Dr. Serrat, she leads the study that relies on qualitative life-course interviews (n=240).

In addition to the CIVEX project, Sandra is currently the Primary Investigator for a project on the documentation practices that needs assessors within eldercare rely on, which is funded by The Kamprad Family Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Research & Charity. This project aims to shed light on how care managers within eldercare (which is the term often used for needs assessors) reason about documentation practices in general, and especially in light of the increasing demands for standardization that are placed on welfare representatives. To address this aim, the project relies on focus group interviews (approximately 50-100 care managers will be interviewed). In addition, the project analyzes (both quantitatively and qualitatively) the case files that need assessors use (n=900-1,200 approx.). The project is being conducted in collaboration with Prof. Anna Olaison (Linköping University; who is primarily responsible for the data collection via focus groups) and Dr. Maricel Knechtel (Uppsala University; who is primarily responsible for the quantitative analysis of case files).

Sandra Torres

Publikationer

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Artiklar i tidskrift

Böcker

Doktorsavhandlingar, monografi

Kapitel i böcker, delar av antologi

Konferensbidrag

Manuskript (preprint)

Rapporter

Samlingsverk (redaktörskap)

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