My brother Roger Penn, who has died aged 77, was an inquisitive sociologist and liked to challenge convention. His influences were neo-Ricardian economics, Weberian sociology and the Annales school in France, and he maintained a strong focus on empirical research.
Born in Lytham, Lancashire, to Olga (nee Johnson) and Sidney Penn, a mechanical engineer at the Atomic Energy Authority, in Preston, Roger went to Stratton grammar school, in Biggleswade, Bedfrodshire, and then Jesus College, Cambridge, where he studied history and later social and political sciences, graduating in 1972.
With a Fulbright scholarship, he obtained an MA in sociology from Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1973. He completed a PhD in sociology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, which was published as Skilled Workers in the Class Structure (1985).
Roger joined Lancaster University in 1977, where he became professor in economic sociology and statistics; he moved to Queen’s University Belfast in 2012 and retired as emeritus professor in 2016. He was involved in several research collaborations including the Economic and Social Research Council’s social change and economic life initiative (1985-88). His work in this consortium used the town of Rochdale as a case study – a location that Roger returned to as a research site throughout his career, exploring the decline of the textile industry and its ethnic minority population.
He developed his statistical skills through collaboration with the social statisticians at Lancaster University’s Centre for Applied Statistics. He was an early adopter of the technique of log linear analysis in sociology and applied it to investigating the role of intermarriage in class mobility.
Roger was the British coordinator of a unique comparative international study of migrants in Britain, France and Germany, which examined processes of assimilation. He published several papers in the Sage Social Research Qualitative Dataset series. A keen follower of football and a lifelong Spurs fan, Roger focused his research latterly on the sociology of sport and football graffiti.
In 1973 he married Brenda (nee Wetton), a primary school teacher. He is survived by his wife, a son, two daughters, two grandchildren, and me.
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