Dr Ambika Kapoor

Lecturer

Strathclyde Institute of Education

Personal statement

I am a Lecturer in Early Childhood Education. My interdisciplinary areas of interest focus around children’s agency, childhood geographies, the Global South, and social & environmental justice. I have had the opportunity to learn from research in the UK, as well as cross-national work with colleagues in India and Brazil.

Prior to my academic journey, I have worked in think tanks and policy organisations across India on issues related to social justice, education, policies related to street children and children’s right to food.

Expertise

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Prize And Awards

Doctoral Fellowship Program (Brazil): Recipient; 2019
Lady Meherbai D TATA Trust Scholarship: Recipient; 2016
Leeds Anniversary Research Scholarship: Recipient; 2016

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Publications

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Publications

How can children and young people have a voice in urban treescapes?: Carr Simon, Hackett Abi, Pahl Kate, Ambreen Samyia, Badwan Khawla, Curtis Elizabeth, Gill Susannah, Kapoor Ambika, Lawrence Peter, Siebers Johan, White Jan; People and Nature (2025); https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70224
'It's good what we're doing and it's scary what we're facing' : young people's care-ful environmental action in the UK: Kapoor Ambika, Rishbeth Clare; Journal of Youth Studies Vol 29, pp. 71-88 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2024.2419080
Young Children Act : Nature and Climate: Kapoor Ambika, Rishbeth Clare; (2023)
Crianças mangues, crianças praças e crianças ruas : quando as paisagens se fazem em corpos infantis: espaços albergues para (algumas) infâncias. Contribuições da geografia da infância aos deslocamentos forçados infantis: Lopes Jader Janer Moreira, Kapoor Ambika; Perspectiva Vol 41, pp. 1 (2023); https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2023.e86466
Agency, power and emotions : ethnographic note-taking in research with children: Kapoor Ambika, Ambreen Samyia, Zhu Yan; International Journal of Research and Methods in Education Vol 46, pp. 421-433 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2023.2196065
A vida espacializada de bebês e crianças : legados para a pensar a docência na educação infantil: Lopes Jader Janer Moreira, Kapoor Ambika, de-Paul Sara Rodrigues Vieira; Cadernos CEDES Vol 43, pp. 75-85 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1590/CC256562

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Teaching

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Teaching

I teach on various modules within the Strathclyde Institute of Education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I also supervise Masters and PGR students.

Research

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Research Interests

Prior to joining the University, I worked in an interdisciplinary UKRI-NERC project ‘Voices of the Future: Collaborating with young people to reimagine treescapes’ focused on mapping activities and impact of environmental, and landscape associated organisations in the UK that engage young people, with a focus on the inclusion of young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

My doctoral ethnographic research explored children's experiences with agency in an indigenous community in Chhattisgarh, India. I unpacked children’s agency through a lens of relationality, illustrating how children’s agency is enabled with relation to their everyday physical spaces, material objects and social relationships. In my work, I draw from works of Indian and indigenous scholars to move beyond the Eurocentric frames of theorisation within childhood studies.