My research interests revolve around policy responses to social disadvantage and inequalities, and the symbolic power of social policies. I have published extensively on issues relating to ‘troubled families’, child poverty and social justice in the past and continues to engage with these topics. However, in recent years, my research interests have primarily focused on the role of local and community sport and leisure clubs and facilities in people's everyday lives and the value that is attached, or not attached, to them.

I am also involved with the Rural Durham Community Research Network  please explore our resources.

Here is some of my more recent work:

Crossley, S. (2026).   The (un)politics of ‘sportswashing’: what’s the problem?.T International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2026.2662214

Billingham, L., Curry, F., & Crossley, S. (2024). Sports Cages as Social Infrastructure: Sociality, Context, and Contest in Hackney's Cages Antipode, 56(6), 2021-2041. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.13090

Crossley, S., Curry, F., & Billingham, L. (2024). ‘You either go on the gang life, or you go on that football life’: class, race, and place in imaginaries of South London’s sports cages' ‘You either go on the gang life, or you go on that football life’: class, race, and place in imaginaries of South London’s sports cages. Journal of Youth Studies, 27(10), 1494-1509. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2023.2226597

My passion for community-engaged and participatory research stems from growing up on an outlying island in Hong Kong, where communal connections were vital to the wellbeing of women and young people. Motivated to contribute to social change, I undertook a social work degree and have since sought ways to co-produce knowledge and practice. Guided by feminist and participatory theories, I developed methods such as Cooperative Grounded Inquiry, Collaborative Focus Group Analysis (with theatre), and Collaborative Practice Research for Social Work to enable co-storying of lived experiences, co-produced interventions, and practice-research integration. I also publish on participatory methods and pedagogy, advocating research training as praxis.

These approaches underpin my empirical work in three areas:

1. Violence against women across personal and political contexts, where I challenge hierarchies of victimhood, individualised understandings of motherhood, and silences around gender-based violence.
2. Theorising social work practice, collaborating with practitioners and service users to co-produce models for end-of-life care, domestic violence, and professional learning across crises and borders.
3. Personal lives in turbulent political times, examining the effects of Hong Kong’s 2014 and 2019 movements and the post-2019 diaspora. I also co-directed the documentary I am fine, thank you. exploring Hongkongers’ identities in the UK.

You can explore some of my work here:

Liu, K., & Kong, S. (2026, January 1) 'I am fine, thank you' [Documentary film].

McBeath, B., Kong, S. T., & Uggerhøj, L. (2026). Practice Research in Social Work—Participation, Co-Creation, and Service Users’ Positions: Introduction to the Articles from the Sixth International Conference on Practice Research Research on Social Work Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315261446482

Noone, C., & Kong, S. (2025). Reconceptualising the Cyclical Process in Participatory Action Research: A Focus on the Individual-Collective Dynamics International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 24. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069251346262