Claire Needler is an ethnology PhD student in the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen. Her current research area is contemporary use of the Scots language among young people in the north east of Scotland. She is particularly interested in changing attitudes towards Scots through education using creative methodologies and participatory action research.

Having worked as a lexicographer and a community educator, working in partnership with Banff Academy’s Scots language class has enabled her to combine her interest in working with words and with people, with a strong underpinning of social justice.