Professor Vanita Sundaram

Profile

Biography

I joined the Department in March 2006 after holding a five-year research post at the Danish National Institute of Public Health. I was primarily involved in research on gender-specific health effects of violence and sexual abuse. This was also the main focus of my doctoral research, which I conducted alongside a research assistantship.

Since joining the Department of Education, my research has focused on sexual harassment and gender-based violence in education settings; the development of research-informed prevention models; methodologies for  conducting research on harassment and violence with children and young people; and the content and role of sex and relationships education. I am leader of the Centre for Research in Education and Social Justice and am keen to supervise research students working in any of the areas outlined above, as well as other issues related to education and gender inequality. My current research projects focus on: Black and minoritised women's experiences of sexual harassment; whole-school approches to tackling gender inequality; sexual violence in higher education; developing culture-change initiatives to challenge violence and harassment in educational contexts.

My undergraduate degree (Sociology) and my MA (Women’s Studies) were both completed at the University of Kent at Canterbury. I completed my PhD in Public Health at the University of Copenhagen.

Departmental roles

• Deputy Head of Department (2018-present)
• Chair, Board of Studies (2016-18)
• Chair, Education Equality and Diversity Group (2015-present)
• Director of Undergraduate Studies (2011-13)

University roles

• Chair, Social Sciences Athena SWAN Group (2020-present)
• Social Science representative, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee
  (2016-present)
• Social Sciences Faculty Board, elected academic member (2016-18)

Research

Overview

My current research interests include Black and minoritised girls’ and women’s experiences of sexual harassment; whole-school approaches to tackling gender inequality and sexual harassment; universities as conducive contexts for sexual violence; and role of sex and relationships education in preventing gender-based violence. I am interested in working with motivated research students on any of these areas and other issues within education and gender inequality more broadly.

Funded projects

• 2023 End Violence Against Women. (£5k consultancy). Mapping whole-school approaches to tackling sexual harassment and violence in the UK.
• 2022-23 FORWARD. (£5k consultancy). Exploring Black and minoritised women’s experiences of sexual harassment in higher education in the UK.
• 2022 Plan International. (£20k). Exploring Black and racially minoritised girls‘ experiences of public sexual harassment.
• 2021 Council of Europe. (£6k). Preventing violence against women and girls through formal and non-formal education.
• 2018-19 White Rose University Consortium, (£10,082). Using religious imagery in popular culture to explore and challenge everyday sexism, sexual harassment and abuse together with secondary School Students, 2018-2019.
• 2017-18 HEFCE (£42,528). Developing an intersectional approach to training on sexual harassment, violence and hate crime (with Alison Phipps, University of Sussex).
• 2017-18 HEFCE (£49,237). Cascading training to change culture: An institution-wide approach to prevention, intervention and response to sexual violence. Higher Education Funding Council for England (with Rob Aitken, Department of Politics, University of York).
• 2017-19 (£15k). ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Universities Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence.
• 2016-18 European Commission, Daphne programme. (£195,005). Universities Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence. (led by Brunel University and in partnership with University of Sussex, Panteion University (Greece), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain), Universidad del Pais Vasco (Spain), Universita degli Studi di Torino (Italy), Daphne programme, European Commission. Total €907,833 grant.
• 2013-14 Society for Research into Higher Education. (£10k) Lad Culture in Higher Education: Exploring Staff Perspectives. (with Carolyn Jackson, Lancaster University).
• 2013-14 University of York (£2k). Education young people about sex: a scoping study of school-based sex education in the UK.
• 2011-12 Esmee Fairbairn. (£77,868). Creating Citizenship Communities. (led by Ian Davies and Gillian Hampden-Thompson).
• 2010-11 Society for Educational Studies. (£5k). Young people and violence: understandings of violence and discourses of acceptability.
• 2010. UNICEF (£300k). Education in Emergencies and Post-Conflict Transition Programme. (led by Sultan Barakat, and with David Connolly, Frank Hardman and Steve Zyck).
• 2009-10 (£15k). ESRC International Training and Networking Opportunities award. (led by Paul Wakeling and with Gillian Hampden-Thompson).
• 2008-09 University of York (£2k). Developing Inclusive Methologies for Research with Children with SEN (with Alison Wilde, Leeds Beckett University)
• 2005-06 Danish Ministry of Health (£20k). Suicide risk among minority ethnic groups in Denmark (with Karin Helweg-Larsen, National Institute of Public Health, Denmark and Lillian Zollner, University of Southern Denmark)
• 2003-04 Danish Ministry for Gender Equality and Social Affairs. (£18k). Violence victimisation as a gender-specific process.
• 2002-05 Nordic Research Academy. (£50k). Violence victimisation as a gener-specific process.
• 2002-04 European Commission. (£60k). Prevalence and health sequels of violence (with Karin Helweg-Larse, National Institute of Public Health, Denmark).
• 2001 European Commission. (£94k) Data collection on intentional injuries (with Karin Helweg-Larse, National Institute of Public Health, Saakeje Mulder, Consumer Safety Institute, The Netherlands, Rafaello Raboni, Ministry of Health, Rovigo, and David Stone, University of Glasgow).
  

Research group(s)

• Centre for Research on Education and Social Justice

Supervision

• 2022- Sahana Arun Kumar (Consent education in India)
• 2021- Louis Provis (Developing child-led sexuality education)
• 2021- Arwa Alhumaidan (Representation of gender in school textbooks in Suadi Arabia)
• 2020- Huaijue Jiang (Parental views on sex education in China)
• 2020- Jessie Shepherd (Supporting the social and emotional needs of migrant and refugee girls)
• 2019- Katie Smith (Exploring girls' reading of gender in novels)
• 2016- Elizabeth Mwebe (Girls' education in Zambia)
• 2015- Dawn Evans (Exploring the journeys of African and Caribbean women into leadership position in FE)

Completed PhD students

• 2015-21 Annis Stead (Lad culture and higher education: definitions, prevalence and challenge)
• 2017-20 Erin Shannon (University responses to sexual violence disclosures: a comparative analysis between the US and UK)
• 2015-20 Eleni Zotou (Exploring trainee teachers’ perceptions of cultural and ethnic diversity in primary schools)
• 2014-18 Catherine Atkinson (Children’s ‘doing’ of gender and sexuality in the primary school)
• 2014-18 Paulina Bronfmann (Teaching human rights through the plays of Shakespeare)
• 2012-16 Helen Sadler (The role of teaching assistants in facilitating the social inclusion of young people with special educational needs)
• 2012-16 Manuel Lopez Pereyra (Sexual diversity in UK schools: A study of trainee teachers’ awareness and perceptions of sexual diversity)
• 2011-16 Jawaher Alwedinani (Gender and subject choice in higher education in Saudi Arabia)
• 2008-12 Dung Tong Tuyet (Identity and second language acquisition: Barriers to intercultural communication among Vietnamese students in the UK)

External activities

Memberships

• Co-chair, Gender and Education Association
• Gender and Education Editorial Board
• Sociology Associate Board
• British Educational Research Association
• British Sociological Association
• The 1752 Group, Advisory Board

Editorial duties

Reviewer for:

• Gender and Education
• Sociology
• Journal of Interpersonal Violence
• Gender and Society
• ESRC
• The Sociological Quarterly
• Social Science and Medicine

International links

• National Institute of Public Health, Denmark
• University of Southern Denmark
• Deakin University, Australia
• University of Copenhagen
• Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain