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The Centre draws together scholars from a wide range of departments, including anthropology, development, education, film & media studies, geography, history, laws, psychology and sociology.
The centre has affiliated staff and students from across UCL. If you would like to be involved please email critical.childhood@ucl.ac.uk
Director | Steering group | Associated staff | Associated PhDs
Director
Rachel Rosen (Social Research Institute): I am a sociologist, concerned with tracing the ways childhood is experienced, performed, positioned, and figured vis-a-vis people’s life making practices in neoliberal border regimes. I explore these questions through ethnography and participatory research and am committed to change-orientated research and public engagement for social justice.
Steering group
Feryal Awan (Culture, Communication & Media): Feryal's research interests lie at the intersection of cultural studies and critical childhood studies. She examines the political, cultural and socioeconomic impact of colonialism on children in Palestine and structural racism in the UK, with a particular focus on identity, borders, policing, and the suppression of Palestine solidarity.
Lily Chang (History) - Lily is a historian of late imperial and modern China. She specialises on the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) with a particular focus on the intersectionality between law and childhood, including children as an ambiguous category.
Darren Chetty (Arts & Sciences): Darren is an internationally recognised scholar on philosophy for/with children and has published academic work on philosophy, education, racism, dialogue, children’s literature and hip-hop culture as well as for general readers.
Spyros Spyrou (European University Cyprus) – external advisor: Professor Spyrou’s work explores children’s identities in relation to nationalism, migration, and borders; poverty; and social exclusion, with a more recent focus on the ethics and politics of knowledge production in childhood studies.
Associated Staff
Priscilla Alderson (Social Research Institute): I’ve researched children’s international rights especially relating to health and education, their informed consent to medical treatment and surgery, and how critical realism can contribute to childhood studies.
Nelly Ali (Social Research Institute): Her research focuses on the lived experiences of marginalised children, particularly street-connected girls, exploring issues of violence, gender, social justice, and children's rights, with a commitment to advocating for their welfare and advancing global discourse on children's rights and childhood studies.
Deniz Arzuk (Social Research Institute): Her multidisciplinary research has three distinct but interlinked foci: neoliberalisation of childhood in comparative contexts, with a specific focus on Turkey and Britain; childhood and children’s rights in policy and public discourse; and children’s culture in the twentieth century.
Meghanne Barker (Education, Practice & Society): A visual and linguistic anthropologist who has done research in Kazakhstan regarding children's play, performance, and puppetry, and in Southeast Europe on amateur filmmaking, migration, and intimacy.
Susie Bower-Brown (Social Research Institute): Susie's research explores gender and family diversity, with a particular focus on the social experiences of trans and non-binary youth and children/parents in LGBTQ+ families.
Alice Bradbury (Education, Policy and Society): I am a sociologist of education interested in how policy is enacted in schools and early years settings and how this relates to inequalities.
Sara Bragg (Education, Practice & Society): Sara's research interests are in child and youth cultures (including their gendered and sexual cultures) inside and outside the classroom, in creative methodologies for generative research encounters with young people, and in cultural theories that can diffract or open up our understanding of those encounters in new ways.
Michelle Cannon (Culture, Communication & Media): Lecturer in Digital Arts and Media Education with an interest in evolving conceptions of literacy that include discourses on: practical digital work with young learners, creating meaning and mood in multiple modes (moving image, animation, soundscape), and critical media production practices in a range of educational settings.
Estella Carpi (Risk and Disaster Reduction): A social anthropologist, concerned with how different societies respond to crisis and crisis management. Her research has largely revolved around identity politics in humanitarian livelihood programmes and in play and sport activities for refugee children.
Elaine Chase (Centre for Education and International Development): Elaine’s teaching and research focus on the sociological dimensions of health and the promotion of wellbeing and rights of individuals and communities most likely to experience marginalisation and exclusion in contexts of migration, displacement, crisis and conflict.
Delanjathan Devakumar (Centre for the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents): Delan is a public health doctor with clinical expertise in paediatrics and in humanitarian contexts. He works on child health in relation to: violence and conflict; migration; racism; and climate change.
Eve Dickson (Social Research Institute): A psychosocial researcher focused on questions of childhood and generation in relation to migration and welfare regimes.
Emily Emmott (Anthropology): Emily is an interdisciplinary evolutionary anthropologist researching the impact of social support around children, adolescents and families in low-fertility populations, including how the mis-match between the norms and realities of childrearing impacts children and caregivers.
Hakan Ergul (Culture, Communication & Media): Associate professor of media and cultural studies, with an experience on working with children and adolescents in urban poverty and emergency contexts. He has carried out research in the context of migration and refugee emergency, organised digital storytelling workshops on everyday experiences of migrant communities and delivered courses on media and children-rights, in close collaboration with UNICEF, UNHCR, local and international NGOs.
Charlotte Faircloth (Social Research Institute): From sociological and anthropological perspectives, Charlotte's work has focussed on parenting, gender and reproduction using qualitative and cross-cultural methodologies. This has explored infant feeding, couple relationships, intergenerational relations and the impact of coronavirus on family life.
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Geography): Professor in Migration and Refugee Studies.
Diana Georgescu (School of Slavonic and East European Studies): Assistant Professor in Transnational Southeast European Studies
Rob George (Laws): A lawyer with a background also in social policy and empirical research, working mainly on the law relating to children in family disputes and children’s rights.
Eirini Gkouskou (IOE - Learning & Leadership): a critical approach to early childhood education, leadership, and professionalism, organised around three main themes: innovative models of early childhood education and STEM, emphasising a play-based approach; professional identities and practices among early childhood educators; politics of knowledge production, aiming to empower children as active agents of change.
Lauren Hammond (Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment): Lauren is a geography (teacher) educator by background, and her research lies in, and across, the fields of children’s geographies, geography education, and geographies of education and education spaces.
Eleanore Hargreaves (Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment): My work is mainly about listening to children’s voices from their educational settings, in relation to social justice. I have just started a new project, listening to girl-children’s experiences of climate change education in Egypt, funded by British Academy.
Hanan Hauari (Social Research Institute) A social scientist with a research focus on children, young people, and families, particularly care-experienced youth and foster families, using participatory approaches to understanding marginalized childhoods.
Katie Hollingworth (Social Research Institute): Specialising in research with children in care and care experienced young people, early childhood care and education, child and family social policy and evaluations of services and programmes designed to support the lives and wellbeing of children and their families.
Humera Iqbal (Social Research Institute): A social and cultural psychologist, whose research centres on the identity, historical and contemporary lived experiences of migrant and minority families, children and young people. This includes citizenship experiences and statelessness, social representations, and social activism.
Matthew Jay (Population, Policy & Practice Dept): Matt is interested in the intersections of (family) law and health, particularly from an epidemiological perspective.
Alison Lamont (Social Research Institute, Thomas Coram Research Unit). I am a qualitative sociologist with a background in Chinese Studies and interest in the study of gender, families and childhood, and I am currently working on a NIHR funded health visiting in England for families facing adversity.
Nasreen Majid (Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment): Nasreen's experience as a primary educator brings together an interdisciplinary lens in how educational opportunities are shaped for primary pupils. Her current work involves understanding how primary age children can be supported to build deep connections with nature and how teachers can be empowered to incorporate Climate Change and Sustainability Education practices in their curriculum.
Deborah Martin (SELCS): Professor of Latin American Film and Culture
Veena Meetoo (Social Research Institute): Veena is a Lecturer in Sociology. Her research focuses on the reproduction of inequalities through the intersections of 'race', generation and migration, and with children and young people in familial, care and school contexts.
Rosa Mendizabal (Social Research Institute): Her research explores the experiences of critically ill babies, young children, and their families as they navigate complex healthcare systems and how to improve the delivery of compassionate, effective paediatric care.
Peter Moss (Thomas Coram Research Unit): A historian by background, with an interest in early childhood systems and pedagogy, democratic culture in education, the place of care in education and beyond, and the implications of the polycrisis and the decline of neoliberalism for the education of children and for educational institutions.
Kirrily Pells (Social Research Institute): Kirrily's research, teaching and public engagement concerns global childhoods and children's rights especially in relation to violence, memory, peace, and social justice using creative, arts-based methods and co-production.
Ann Phoenix (Social Research Institute): Professor of Psychosocial Studies, her research interests include intersectional perspectives on childhoods.
John Potter (Culture, Communication & Media): Professor of Media in Education with a background in primary teaching and advisory work, interested in participatory research in media arts and play, with a focus on children's cultural production and recording of their lived experience.
Andrea Rigon (Development Planning Unit): Professor of Participatory Development Planning.
Jessica Ringrose (Education, Practice & Society): Professor Ringrose specialises in children's experiences of social media, technologically facilitated violence, digital literacy and online safety.
Helen Roberts (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health): A medical sociologist interested in inequalities in child health and what can be done about them.
Guy Roberts-Holmes (Learning & Leadership): is a professor of the sociology of early childhood education interested in how neoliberal policy articulates with digital platforms and artificial intelligence and may inadvertently reproduce social inequalities.
Yaspia Salema (Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment): With an interdisciplinary background in early childhood education and international development, I am interested in education and social justice research that uses multimodal participatory design to empower children, fostering a more inclusive way for them to share their lived experiences.
Wendy Sims-Schouten (Arts & Sciences): Wendy is an interdisciplinary psychologist with a specific interest in historic and contemporary practices around wellbeing, eclectic resilience (including resistance and defiance) and coproduction with children and young people from disadvantaged, displaced and marginalised communities.
Kristýna Skriczka (Social Research Institute): I am committed to addressing complex societal challenges at the intersections of children’s rights, mental health and sustainability through use of holistic approaches and creative research methods.
Diana Sousa (Learning & Leadership): Diana's research interests revolve around global education systems, policies, and practices, focusing on examining and exploring the significance and impact of democratic cultures on early childhood (and all) education.
Eva A Sprecher (Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology): I am a psychology researcher conducting research exploring the mental health of care-experienced children and young people, particularly understanding the drivers of transdiagnostic mental health outcomes including relational mechanisms.
Stuart Tannock (Institute of Education) Stuart's research interests focus on the areas of critical youth studies; educational equality and justice in a global context; the social politics of immigration, work and education; and alternative forms of radical, popular, democratic and environmental education.
Yan Zhu (Education, Practice & Society): Yan’s research focuses on children’s rights and welfare, children’s personal lives, relationships and emotional wellbeing, with her most recent project exploring the complexity and diversity of Chinese children’s understandings and practices of peer friendships in the context of a rural primary boarding school.
Associated PhD students
W'Ayendjina Antchandie (Social Research Institute): Children for Change: Being an anti-racist child activist in a neoliberal era of fragmentation and consumerism
Fernanda Ahumada Medina (Social Research Institute): Childhood and parenting practices in migrant families in Chile.
Sitian Chen (Education, Practice & Society): A Study in Blood: Researching Menstruation and Gender Identities Becoming with Chinese Adolescents
Andrea Cortés Saavedra (Social Research Institute): Producing migrant otherness: An ethnographic study in a school in northern Chile
Ziwen Cui (Institute of Education): Negotiating a gendered self – how young people negotiate their subjectivities while using a lifestyle-sharing platform in China
Abi Deivanayagam (IGH): Addressing the Fossil fuel Industry’s role in driving Climate Change And Health inequalities: A multi-method youth participatory project using a structural racism lens
Ruiqi Deng (IOE Social Research Institute): Child Gifting Practices in Rural China
Bin Guo (IOE Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment): Investigating young children and families' interaction in a natural history gallery and an anthropological gallery
Kaidong Guo (Social Research Institute): Migratory Birds: inter-generational dynamics in the context of cyclical family separation and reunion among Chinese ‘liushou’ families
Sixuan Han (Social Research Institute): Visual representation and Curation of childhood memory related to the COVID-19 Pandemic in China
Anna Hata (Education, Practice and Society): Intersectional analysis of inclusive education in Nepal
Hanan Kazim (IOE Learning & Leadership): A Socio-educational Perspective on How Children Living in the UAE Conceptualise Their Human Rights.
Shaheena Khan (Education Practice and Society): Muslim children: Schools, Government policy: A Study of Lived Experiences
Hannah Kujundzic (Social Research Institute): Idling No More: Youth as Caretakers in the Climate Crisis
Caroline Lynch (Social Research Institute): Children's experiences at the homelessness-education interface: a socio-legal discussion.
Pavel Rubio-Hormazabal (Social Research Institute): Reimagining Protection in Children’s Everyday Life: An Ethnography in Southern Chile
Maria Vial Fourcade (Education, Practice and Society): Exploring participatory practices in Chilean early childhood education