Professor Vanita Sundaram

Profile

Biography

I joined the Department as a Lecturer in Education in October 2007, having completed a PhD in Public Health at the University of Copenhagen, alongside a research post at the Danish National Institute of Public Health. My research interests have always centered on gender violence, sexual harassment and child sexual abuse, and since joining the Department I have focused on gender violence and sexual harassment within educational settings. My research has covered schools and universities and has explored understandings, experiences and impacts of gender violence, and responses to sexual harassment and ‘lad culture’ from pupil/student and staff perspectives.

My current research projects focus on: Black and racially-minoritised women's experiences of sexual harassment and impacts on social and mental wellbeing; developing a whole-school programme to tackling gender-based violence; engaging boys and young men as allies in gender violence prevention; and inclusive approaches to relationships and sex education. I am in interested in supervising students whose research interests lie in any of these areas and I am particularly keen to work with researchers who take an intersectional approach to understanding experiences and impacts of gender violence.

Departmental roles

2010-2013      Director of Undergraduate Studies

2013-2022      Athena Swan/EDI Lead

2016-2018      Chair of Board of Studies

2018-2022      Deputy Head of Department

2022-present  Head of Department

University roles

2016-present  Social Sciences representative, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee

2020-present  Social Sciences Athena Swan chair

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; schools and universities as conducive contexts for sexual violence; and inclusive approaches to relationships and sex education (racial justice approaches, SEND-inclusive approaches).

I am interested in working with motivated research students on any of these areas.

Funded projects

• 2025 Born in Bradford. Exploring Black and racially-minoritised girls’ experiences of public sexual harassment.
• 202
• 2023 End Violence Against Women. Mapping whole-school approaches to tackling sexual harassment and violence in the UK.
• 2022-23 FORWARD. Exploring Black and minoritised women’s experiences of sexual harassment in higher education in the UK.
• 2022 Plan International. Exploring Black and racially minoritised girls‘ experiences of public sexual harassment.
• 2021 Council of Europe. Preventing violence against women and girls through formal and non-formal education.
• 2018-19 White Rose University Consortium. 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/OfS. Developing an intersectional approach to training on sexual harassment, violence and hate crime (with Alison Phipps, University of Sussex).
• 2017-18 HEFCE/OfS. 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 ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Universities Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence.
• 2016-18 European Commission, Daphne programme. 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. Lad Culture in Higher Education: Exploring Staff Perspectives. (with Carolyn Jackson, Lancaster University).
• 2011-12 Esmee Fairbairn. Creating Citizenship Communities. (led by Ian Davies and Gillian Hampden-Thompson).
• 2010-11 Society for Educational Studies. Young people and violence: understandings of violence and discourses of acceptability.
• 2010. UNICEF. Education in Emergencies and Post-Conflict Transition Programme. (led by Sultan Barakat, and with David Connolly, Frank Hardman and Steve Zyck).
• 2003-04 Danish Ministry for Gender Equality and Social Affairs. Violence victimisation as a gender-specific process.
• 2002-05 Nordic Research Academy. Violence victimisation as a gender-specific process.
• 2002-04 European Commission, Daphne programme. Prevalence and health sequels of violence (with Karin Helweg-Larsen, National Institute of Public Health, Denmark).

Research group(s)

• Centre for Research on Education and Social Justice

Supervision

• 2022- Sahana Arun Kumar (Consent education in India)
• 2021- Arwa Alhumaidan (Representation of gender in school textbooks in Suadi Arabia)
• 2020- Huaijue Jiang (Parental views on sex education in China)

Completed PhD students

• 2020-2023 Jessie Shepherd (Supporting the social and emotional needs of migrant and refugee girls)
• 2019-2023 Katie Smith (Exploring girls' reading of gender in novels)
• 2016-2023 Elizabeth Mwebe (Girls' education in Zambia)
• 2015-2024 Dawn Evans (Exploring the journeys of African and Caribbean women into leadership position in FE)
• 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

• Gender and Education Association (Chair, 2016-2024)

Editorial duties

Reviewer for:

• Gender and Education
• Sociology
• Journal of Interpersonal Violence
• Gender and Society
• British Educational Research Journal
• ESRC
• Medical Research Council