Nidhi Singal
Position/Status
- Lecturer
- Fellow and Tutor, Hughes Hall
- Director of Studies (Education), St. Catharine's College
E-mail Address
sn241@cam.ac.uk
Phone
(+44) 01223 767608
Qualifications
- PhD, University of Cambridge
- MPhil in Education, University of Cambridge
- M.A. Clinical Psychology, University of Delhi
- B.A. (Honours) Applied Psychology, University of Delhi
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations
- British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE)
- British Educational Research Association (BERA)
- Fellow, Cambridge Commonwealth Society
Profile
Nidhi trained as a clinical psychologist and worked with children and young adults in clinical and subsequently, a range of different educational settings. From 2000- 2004 she undertook a qualitative research focused on exploring the various meanings of inclusive education in an Indian context. This work has been taken forward as Nidhi was invited to be a Research consultant on a national level project working towards building inclusive schools across three states in India (2006-ongoing).
She is the international team leader for the Disability, Education and Poverty Project (DEPP) which is part of the Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty (RECOUP) based at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, Cambridge. This project is researching the human, social and economic outcomes of education for young people with disabilities living in poverty, in Ghana, India, Kenya and Pakistan. The consortium itself is a partnership between seven different institutions and is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
Nidhi is also the Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Educational Research.
Academic area and links
- Education, Equality and Development Group
- Inclusive and special education
- Centre for Commonwealth Education
Research Topics
- Education for All
- Southern perspectives on inclusive and special education
- Poverty and special educational needs
- Disability, poverty and development
- Qualitative educational research in Southern countries
- Classroom based enquiry: role of teachers as researchers
Current Research Projects
- Disability, Education and Poverty Project (part of RECOUP, funded by the DFID)
- Jigsaw project. Fitting the Pieces Together: home school expectations and their impact on children and their learning (funded by the R and D Fund, FoE)
- Developing inclusive schools: an action research project (funded by the National Council for Educational Research and Training, India)
Course Involvement
- Doctoral supervisions
- Masters (Coordinator: Perspectives on Inclusive and Special Education)
- Practitioner Professional Development (PPD)
- Undergraduate teaching
Publications
Singal, N., and Jeffery, R. (2008) Qualitative research skills workshop: A facilitator's reference manual, http://manual.recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/, Cambridge: RECOUP.
This is an 'open access' work: an Open Educational Resource. We encourage using, re-using and adapting the resources we have developed for non-commercial purposes. Based on the philosophy of open-sharing, collaboration and capacity building, it is an attempt to foster a community of qualitative social researchers working in the South.
Miles, S. and Singal, N. (in press) The Education for All and Inclusive Education debate: Conflict, contradiction or opportunity? International Journal of Inclusive Education.
Singal, N. (2008) Working towards inclusion: Reflections from the classroom. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1516-1529.
Jeffery, R. and Singal, N. (2008) Measuring disability in India. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43 (12-13), 22-24.
Singal, N. (2008) Forgotten Youth: Disability and development in India. RECOUP Working Paper 14.
Singal, N. (2007) Conceptualizing disability and education in the South: Challenges for research. RECOUP Working Paper 10.
This working paper has been included by the World Bank in their Disability Knowledge Kit to be shared with other UN and external agencies. The kit is tentatively titled, Inter-Agency Disability Knowledge Base
Singal, N. (2006) An ecosystemic approach for understanding inclusive education: An Indian case study. European Journal of Psychology of Education, Special issue: Ten years after Salamanca, XXI (3), 239-252.
Singal, N. (2006) Inclusive education in India: International concept, national interpretation. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 53 (3), 351-369.
Singal, N. (2005) Mapping the field of inclusive education: A review of the Indian literature. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 9 (4), 331-350.
Alexander, E. et al. (2005) Developing access to skills for life for adults with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Guidance materials developed as part of the Learning for Living project. UK: DfES and NIACE.
Singal, N. and Rouse, M. (2003) 'We do inclusion': Practitioner perspectives in some 'inclusive schools' in India. Perspectives in Education. Special Issue: The inclusion/exclusion debate in South Africa and developing countries, 21 (3), 85-98.
A summary of this paper was produced by id21 and was featured on the Education Highlights of their website in May 2005.
A version of this paper was produced as 'Inclusive Education in India: A Lot of Talk But Not Enough Action?'' in the EENET Asia Newsletter, June 2007 .
Singal, N. (2002) Inclusive education in India. Paper prepared for the workshop Embracing Diversity: A tool kit for creating inclusive, learning-friendly environments. UNESCO-Thailand (10-18 July).
Singal, N. (2001) Focus on Policy: India. Enabling Education Network Newsletter. No. 6.
Selected Presentations
VIII International Sociological Association conference on Asian Youth and Childhoods, Lucknow, November 2007: 'Forgotten Youth: Disability and development in India.
RECOUP symposium, UKFIET conference on International Education and Development. Going for Growth? School, Community, Economy, Nation, Oxford, September 2007: 'Conceptualising disability and education in the South: Challenges for research.
Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference on Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? Glasgow, August 2005: 'Responding to difference: Policies to support 'inclusive education' in India.
Invited Speaker, North South Dialogue III, Implementing Inclusive Education and moving towards a Global Alliance, New Delhi, India. March 2005: 'Inclusion in the real world: practitioners making sense of inclusive education in Indian classrooms.