Nandita Chaudhary

Nandita Chaudhary, Ph. D. is presently working as Reader at the Department of Child Development, Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi. Over the last two decades, she has been involved with research, teaching, writing and administration in the area of child and family studies in India. She is particularly interested in issues linked with communication, education, family relationships, parenting, self and identity as culturally constructed.

Some of the current issues in which she is involved are:

  • Culture, communication and parenting
  • Self and Identity of Indian youth
  • Child care choices of employed mothers in urban Indian families
  • Education programmes for disadvantaged families
  • Curriculum revision in higher education in child development
  • Relationships within the Indian family, siblings, parent-child, others.
During the years 1993-94, Nandita was placed as a Fulbright scholar with Prof. Nancy Budwig at the Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester. In the following years, Nandita pursued research in the filed of Language socialization in collaboration with Prof. Budwig that received funding from the Spencer Foundation. More recently, Nandita has been involved with several writing assignments for journal articles, text books and an independent project of her own, a forthcoming book with Sage, India, tentatively titled, 'Listening to Culture', in which she has presented a synthesis of her work with the Indian family and more specifically with reference to adult interactions with children. In the area of research, she is presently collaborating with Prof. Heidi Keller of University of Osnabruek, Germany, on parenting in the two countries, India and Germany.

She continues to take active interest in her editorial work with the Sage journal Culture and Psychology and combines the writing interests with her research and teaching work at the university. In addition, Nandita also participates in groups of public interest on children and families in India, regularly steering groups of parents, teachers and administrators on issues linked with education, communication, parenting and family relationships. She is an active member of the International Association for Cross-cultural Psychology, the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, the All-India Women's Education Fund Association and the Indian Association for Preschool Education.