Professor at University of Surrey
Professor Harriet R. Tenenbaum is a Professor in Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Surrey and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). She holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Professor Tenenbaum also serves as Director of the Social Development Lab, which focusses on children’s discrimination in everyday situations and how this discrimination can be reduced. The Lab also explores children’s emotions and moral development.
Professor Tenebaum’s university roles and responsibilities include Section Lead, Social Psychology (SEER Lead), Programme Lead for the MSc Psychology, Surrey Online (SOL), and Sustainability Fellow with the Institute for Sustainability. She also supervises postgraduate research projects.
A prolific scholar with over a hundred publications, Professor Tenenbaum’s main line of research focusses on children’s discrimination in everyday situations, with a particular focus on examining how children are embedded in social systems in which varying levels of discrimination occur at the socio-cultural level and the microsystem of everyday conversations. Her work combines cognitive domain and socio-cultural theories to understand how children negotiate discrimination, rights, and politics daily in relationships. Professor Tenenbaum’s other lines of research examine the development of emotion understanding and children's scientific theories. She is also interested in topics related to teaching and learning.