Sarah Childs

Sarah (she/her) joined the University of Edinburgh in May 2022, following a long period at the University of Bristol, and shorter spells at Birkbeck and Royal Holloway, University of London. With a degree in Politics from Sussex University, and a Master's in Women's Studies from York, Sarah studied for her PhD part-time, taking 7 years to complete her thesis. Sarah Childs joined the University of Edinburgh in May 2022. Her research centres on the theory and practice of women's political representation, gender and political parties, parliaments and institutional change. Childs latest book Feminist Democratic Representation (co-authored with Karen Celis) was published by OUP in 2020, and jointly won the PSA W.J.M. MacKenzie book prize in 2022. Childs is also author of The Good Parliament Report, 2016, which followed a secondment to the UK House of Commons. She is finalising her new book, Designing and Building Feminist Institutions, which will be published in 2023.

Key research interest include:

• Political representation
• Gender and parliaments
• Political parties
• British Politics
• Feminism and democracy
• Feminist institutionalism

Current and Notable research public/ publications:

• The author of four research monographs (New Labour’s Women MPs, 2004; Women and British Party Politics, 2008; and Sex Gender and the Conservative Party, with Paul Webb, 2012), her most recent, award-winning book is Feminist Democratic Representation (2020, with Karen Celis).
• She is currently completing Designing and Building Feminist Institutions, which draws on her experiences seconded to the UK House of Commons in 2015-16 and the drafting of the The Good Parliament Report, and her gender sensitive parliaments research with the CPA and UN Women.
• In October 2023, and with her co-PI Rosie Campbell (KCL) and colleagues in PIR she will begin a new 5 year, 5 country case study, UKRI/ERC funded project – QUALREP – that examines when women, including the most marginalized, are well represented in electoral politics.