Dr Sarah Ralph-Lane

Sarah is Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminology in the Department of Social Sciences. An interdisciplinary scholar with a background in Cultural Studies, her research and impactful activities focus on enacting change for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or with childhood vulnerabilities. Sarah’s research utilises qualitative, ethnographic and creative making-based methodologies to explore children and young people’s lived experience of social harms and adversities.

Sarah’s recent ESRC-funded project, Girl-Kind North East, was a school-based programme that created spaces of value within the curriculum and used creativity and ‘making’ to advance self-worth among young women, fostering newfound confidence to challenge issues such as sexual harassment, body-dissatisfaction, and restrictive gender expectations.

Sarah’s commissioned research for Plan International UK outlining the experiences of girls growing up in the North-East – part of their State of Girls’ Rights in the UK report 2020-21 - was launched in Parliament.

Her current research focuses on UK education settings’ support for children experiencing domestic abuse, such as evaluating the impact of the early intervention partnership between the police and schools (Operation Encompass) and understanding the role of educators in identifying and supporting child-victims of domestic abuse.

Sarah has previously been programme leader for BSc Sociology, and in the latter part of the 2024-25 academic year will be programme leader for BSc Criminology and Sociology. She is a member of Northumbria University’s Gender, Violence and Abuse Interdisciplinary Research Theme, is part of a ‘task force’ working on an improved domestic abuse support strategy for university staff, and an Associate of Insights North East.

Outside of academia, Sarah is a Trustee of the Young Women’s Film Academy (a charity focused on improving the well-being of girls and young women while providing them with film making skills), and she is committed to work in the community and at policy arena level to secure better outcomes for children who have experienced domestic and sexual abuse.