Biography
Sonia Sawhney is an Assistant Professor at the School of Educational Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Hyderabad. She brings to academia a rich professional background, having worked as a primary grade teacher and a junior headmistress prior to joining TISS. Her core academic interests lie in engaging with the complexities of inclusive education, special educational needs, equity and social justice, child rights, and students’ social and emotional well-being. More specifically, her work examines the nature of inclusive strategies and how they influence students’ well-being and academic achievement. She pursues her research interests through sustained engagement in research, teaching, publishing, curriculum development and professional development initiatives. Sonia has conceptualised and conducted several teacher education and leadership development workshops and capacity-building programmes for school teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders, including large-scale, multi-day training programmes. She has conducted research for a range of national and international institutions and organisations, including UNESCO, the Government of Telangana, the Government of Maharashtra, Cognizant Foundation and Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (WATIS), among others. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing on multiple perspectives and methodological approaches. She regularly reviews for academic journals, publishers, research bodies and conferences. She is a recipient of the iSTEP scholarship from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, USA, and the Cambridge Assessment Scholarship from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, UK.