Dr Pallawi Sinha
Lecturer in Childhood Studies
- Phone
- +44 (0)1473 338258
- p.sinha@uos.ac.uk
- School/Directorate
- School of Social Sciences and Humanities
- Pallawi Sinha ORCID
-
View Orchid Profile
/prod01/channel_2/media/uniofsuffolk/website/content-assets/images/staff-profile-photos/ssh/Pallawi-Sinha.jpg)
Dr Pallawi Sinha is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies, at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is the current Course Leader for the MA Childhood Studies and MA Education programmes.
Pallawi is passionate about building dialogue on education and childhoods, particularly in indigenous, disadvantaged and marginalised contexts. She is a trained educationalist, social scientist and product designer. Pallawi obtained her doctorate (2016) and a Master’s degree (2012), at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She also completed her PGCE, in 2009, at the University of Essex.
Pallawi’s research and teaching have primarily been concerned with unequal childhoods, epistemic inequalities, indigeneity, sociology and political economy of childhood and education, and early years care and education. Pallawi currently teaches across the Education and Childhood strands, on the undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate programmes, at the University. She has designed and led a range UG modules including (but not limited to): Childhood Care and Education, Children's Material Worlds, Diversity, Rights and Inclusion, Decolonisation and Difference. She is the module leader for the Master's modules on Critical Perspectives in Childhood Studies and Independent Project. Pallawi has also supervised a wide range of undergraduate, Master's and doctoral research projects to successful completions. Previously, she has designed and delivered teaching related to international and comparative education, sociology of childhood and education, educational history, theory and philosophy, arts, culture and community in education, indigeneity, childhood geographies, place- and meaning-making, ethics and politics of education and research, qualitative, participatory and socially-responsive research and research skills.
Pallawi has engaged widely with research and knowledge exchange as she believes this central to her academic and the civic responsibility. She has disseminated her work to the academic community by means of seminars, conferences, lectures and workshops; publishing in peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and reports and presenting to state members and non-government bodies alongside policy-briefing, funding bodies and advisory committees.
Pallawi has obtained a range of small grants including the UKRI Policy Support Fund (£4000) which led to the successful design and
delivery of the national conference titled, ‘Social Constructs of Disabilities and Lived Realities of Autism’, in partnership with Beyond Autism; the UKRI Participatory Research Fund (£4666), 2022-2023, exploring first-generation learners’ perspectives, experiences and navigation of Higher Education, and the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (2022) granted £6000 for the project titled, ‘Suffolk Inclusivity & Diversity’ examining students and staff members on EDI practices and policies within the University of Suffolk.
Pallawi is the Co-organiser of the Children and Childhoods Conference, hosted by the University of Suffolk, UK, and the International Conference for Child Studies, University of Minho, Portugal. The Conferences have offered a regional, national and international platforms for building dialogue, collaborations and networks alongside opportunities for colleagues to publish together.
Pallawi is also the Lead for the Children and Childhoods Research Theme and the Co-Lead for the Global Majorities and Racial Justice Research Theme, situated within the Institute of Crime and Social Justice. This has enabled regional conversations on the topic, delivery of workshops and full-day events for local schools, students and staff members, and civic and reciprocal relationships with local government bodies, the third sector and communities.
Publications
Selected publications (see ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2889-3416 for full listing)
Upcoming Edited Monographs:
Hackett, P., Sinha, P., Gordley-Smith, A. & Na, S. (Eds.). (forthcoming August 2025). Handbook on Race and Racialisation in Social Science Research. Routledge publications.
Sinha, P., Richards, S. & Stella, M. (forthcoming September 2025) Revisiting Contemporary Childhoods: Children as agents of capital or change. Bristol University Press.
Forthcoming Book Chapters :
Sinha, P. (August 2025). ‘Interrogating Research as a Site for (Re-)Configuring Racial Formations’, in P. Hackett et al., (eds) International Handbook of Race, Racism and Racialization in Qualitative Research Methods. Routledge.
Sinha, P. (September 2025). ‘Politicising Childhood’, in P. Sinha, S. Richards & M. Stella (Eds) Revisiting Contemporary Childhoods. Bristol: Bristol Policy Press.
Journal Articles (Peer-reviewed):
Sinha, P. (in press, 2025) ‘(De-)Bordering Children’s Agency’. Global Studies of Childhood. UK: Sage
Sinha, P. (2020). Indigeneity and Education in India: Retelling the Sabar Story. AlterNative.
Burnard P., Colucci-Gray L. & Sinha, P. (2020). Letting arts and science teach: Making the case, heeding the evidence, in Point and Counterpoint section, Curriculum Perspectives. 41(1):113–118.
Sriprakash, A., Maithreyi, R, Kumar, A., Sinha, P. & Prabha, K. (2020). ‘Normative Development in Rural India: ‘School readiness’ and ECCE’ in Comparative Education. doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2020.1725350
Tsimpli, I., Mukhopadhyay, L., Treffers-Daller, J., Alladi, S., Marinis, T, Panda, M., Balasubramaniam, A., & Sinha, P. (2019). ‘Multilingualism and multiliteracy in primary education in India: A discussion of some methodological challenges of an interdisciplinary research project’, in Special issue of Research in Comparative and International Education. 14(1), 54–76. DOI: 10.1177/1745499919828908
Hickman, R., & Sinha, P. (2018). Article ‘The Sabar Ways of Knowing: Sustainable ideas towards Educational Ecology’ in Special Issue of International Journal of Art and Design Education, pp. 113-124. (leading contribution) DOI: 10.1111/jade.12137.
Sinha, P. (2017). ‘Listening Ethically to Indigenous Children: Experiences from India’. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21(3), 272-285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1260843
Hickman, R. & Sinha, P. (2016). ‘Adivasi aesthetic knowing: A duographic account’. Journal of Visual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art, 5(3), 317-328. doi: 10.1386/vi.5.3.317_1
Sinha, P. & Hickman, R. (2016). Sabar Ways of Knowing through the Arts, Visual Arts Research, 41(1), 88-103.
Invited Book Chapters
Sinha, P. (2025). Othering Otherness: The Entangled Stories of Boka and Boka. In: Magalhaes, L. (eds) Otherness in Communication Research. Palgrave Studies in Otherness and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73788-6_4
Sinha, P. (2023). ‘Responding Reflexively, Relationally and Reciprocally to Unequal Childhoods’, Chapter in S. Richards and S. Coombs (Eds.) Reflexive conversations in Research with Children. Bristol: BUP.
Sinha, P. (2021). ‘Ananda K Coomaraswamy: Crossing the boundaries of art and life’. In D. Garnet & A. Sinner (Eds.), International Perspectives in Arts Education. USA: Intellect Publishing
Burnard, P., Sinha, P., Fenyvesi, K., Steyn, C., Werner, O., Brownell, C., & Lavicza. Z. (2020). Book chapter, ‘Reconfiguring STEAM through Material Enactments of Mathematics and Arts: A diffractive reading of young people’s intradisciplinary Math-Artworks’ in P. Burnard and L. Colucci-Gray (Eds.), Why Science and Art Creativities Matter: (Re-)Configuring STEAM for Future-making Education. UK, USA: Brill/Sense Publications
Fenyvesi, K., Burnard, P., Brownell, C., Sinha, P., Steyn, C., Werner, O., & Lavicza. Z. (2019). “Being an Equation that can’t be solved”: Emotional, Cognitive and Creative Relations to Mathematics and the Arts, Expressed through Artworks by South African Students. Book chapter in Landscapes: Art, Aesthetics and Education, volume ‘Armchair and Paintbrush: An eternal Philosophico-artistic tango’. Germany: Springer.
Sinha, P. (2018). ‘Philosophies and Histories of Art Education in India’. Chapter in Baldacchino, J. (Ed), The International Encyclopaedia of Arts and Design Education, Vol. 1, pp. 345-362. USA, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publication.
Sinha, P. & Burke, C. (2013). The City as a Classroom and Street-children of New Delhi. In C. Burke & K. Jones (Eds.), Education, Childhood and Anarchism: Talking Colin Ward. pp.33-45. Oxon, NY: Routledge.
Reports (Invited):
Gotlieb, R.*, Hickey-Moody, A.*, Güroğlu, B.*, Burnard, P.*, Horn, C., Willcox, M. Et al. (2022). ‘The Social and Emotional Foundations of Learning’ in Bugden, S. and Borst, G. (eds.) Education and the Learning Experience in Reimagining Education: The International Science and Evidence based Education Assessment. New Delhi: UNESCO MGIEP.
Sinha, P. (2021) Reviewed and reported on Anna Freud scoping review of the factors that influence families’ ability to provide young people with emotional support over the transition to adulthood April 2021.
Burnard, P., Stahl, G., Gill, G., Giugni, L. & Sinha, P. (2019). ‘Participation and Re-presentation in ‘Start-ups’ as Epistemological Sites: A Feminist Space?’ Report on Women in Social Enterprise to the University of Cambridge Research Team. Cambridge: CHRGS & University of Cambridge.
Sinha, P. (2017). Bihar State Strategy and Action Plan for the Prevention of Child Marriage. Bihar, India: UNFPA.
Sinha, P. & Bhuria, A. (2015). Report on Adult Learning and Education for UN GRALE III Recommendations. Uppingham: ALE Working Group.
Pallawi is passionate about driving conversations beyond academia to engage the wider audience including the state, the public and youth, and other governing bodies and institutions in relation to education, in India and the UK. Previously, she has worked with a range of non-government organisation, trusts and charity-driven schools, and has sought to attend to the same at the University.
Pallawi’s research has seen her work in several transnational projects including a longitudinal study on multilingualism and multiliteracy across India (ESRC-DfID); a British Academy and DfID funded research exploring responsive models of Early Childhood Care and Education across India and UK, and small scale studies building STEAM understanding across 4 countries (UK, USA, South Africa and Finland). Her own research work with the indigenous Sabar community of India has been published widely and led to public sector and academic engagements across India and internationally.
British Association of International and Comparative Education
Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network
HEA Fellow