Dr Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
BA, MSc, PhD
Expertise
Afua teaches on global childhoods. Her research focuses on constructions of childhood and children's rights in Ghana and problematising the Global North vs Global South binary. She is Head of the Children&Families Research Centre.
Current positions
Associate Professor in Global Childhoods and Welfare
School for Policy Studies
Contact
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Biography
Afua's interest in childhood stems from her MSc in Development Studies at the London School of Economics where her dissertation explored the involvement of children in civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. This research led her to develop an interest in the very notion of childhood and how it is understood by different societies and the implications this has for dominant children’s rights and child protection discourses. As a result, she embarked on a Ph.D. programme at the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham where her research sought to elicit the perceptions of local communities on children’s rights, the constructions of childhood, and the socialization of children and explored the implications for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in two communities in Accra, Ghana: Nima and Bukom. Shortly after completing her Ph.D. in May 2008, Afua took up the position of Lecturer in the Sociology of Childhood at the University of Sheffield. In January 2020 Afua moved to the University of Bristol to assume the position of Senior Lecturer in Global Childhoods and Welfare in the School for Policy Studies. In August 2023 she was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
Afua holds a BA (Hons) in History and Sociology (University of Manchester), a MSc in Development Studies (the London School of Economics and Political Science), and a Ph.D. in African Studies (the University of Birmingham).
Research interests
Drawing upon an interdisciplinary background, Afua's research focuses on children’s rights and social and cultural norms; parent-child relations and the implications for children’s wellbeing and rights; the impact of historical developments and more recent social changes on constructions of childhood and child rearing practices; and children’s participatory rights with a focus on trying to move beyond voice. Much of this research has concentrated on Ghana and Nigeria and has received external funding from a number of sources. Specifically, out of the 10 research and networking projects she has managed as Principal Investigator, eight have been funded by external bodies.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
A comparative study of gender construction and its impact on healthy relationships within English and Ghanaian schools
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
We aim to explore the construction of gender within schools and its implications for forming healthy relationships and gender-based violence (GBV) among young people (YP) aged 13-19 in England and…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
09/03/2022 to 01/10/2022
Who Minds the Children? Clarifying the Role of Public Policies and Socio-Ecological Factors in Non-Adult Child Supervision in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?
Role
Collaborator
Description
Was part of a team that successfully obtained funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to undertake a project which seeks to further our understanding…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/05/2020 to 30/04/2025
8121 SPOL. British Academy The Humanities and Social Sciences tackling the UK's International Challenges Programme. Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
06/01/2020 to 31/07/2021
Foregrounding the Perspectives of West African Scholars in Childhood Studies Discourses
Principal Investigator
Description
Successfully obtained funding for a project which seeks to develop the writing capacity of early career childhoods studies scholars based at West African institutions through writing workshops and a mentoring…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/04/2019 to 15/12/2019
Strengthening East and South African Capacity for Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM)
Role
Collaborator
Description
Was part of a collaborative interdisciplinary group which was awarded a networking grant for a project entitled ‘Strengthening East and South African Capacity for Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM)’. As part…Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
03/09/2018 to 30/08/2019
Publications
Recent publications
03/09/2024Troubling Understandings of Childhood Competence in Research Ethics Governance Processes and its Implications for Research with Children and their Families
Research in Education
Turning Global Rights into Local Realities
Turning Global Rights into Local Realities
Adults in Charge: The limits of formal child participatory processes for societal transformation
The Politics of Children’s Rights and Representation
Challenging North-South Binaries and the Implications for Studies of Childhood Globally
Handbook of Children and Youth Studies
Global childhoods
An Introduction to Childhood and Youth Studies and Psychology
Teaching
Afua has been involved in the higher education sector in the UK for the past 21 years as a Graduate Teacher, Visiting Lecturer, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Associate Professor, which is her current position. Much of her teaching has focused on global childhoods, international children's rights policies, family sociology, and anthropological perspectives on globalization. Afua became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) in
2009 and completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching (CiLT) at the University of Sheffield in 2011.
In the 2023-2024 academic year Afua will be convening the following unit:
1) Children in a Global Context (SPOL32008-Year 3).
Additionally, she supervises undergraduate dissertations within childhood studies as well as Masters dissertations in public policy.