Gita Steiner-Khamsi recently joined the Graduate Institute as Professor of Education. Holding a dual academic affiliation, she will teach both in Geneva (Spring semesters) and at Columbia University in New York (autumn semesters).

Iranian by birth and Swiss by upbringing, Professor Steiner-Khamsi spent the first ten years of her professional life working on multicultural and anti-racist education policies at the Ministry of Education of the Canton of Zurich. Through comparing policies in different countries of immigration (U.K., Canada, USA.), she became involved in comparative education methods and theories.

“My background is as a social psychologist, but I got more interested in education reform and school reform”, she said. “Today, my areas of research are globalisation and education, which translates into international governance and education, policy borrowing and lending, and the interaction between the public and private sectors. I mostly look at developing countries, with a special focus on Central Asia and Mongolia, but right now I’m doing a project in the Nordic countries on the use of international references in national school reform.”

At the Graduate Institute, Professor Steiner-Khamsi will teach courses on the theory of international governance and education, and on the tools and techniques of education development. She will also serve as Director of the Network for International Policies and Cooperation in Education and Training (NORRAG), an Associate Programme of the Institute.

Learn more about Gita Steiner-Khamsi in the short video below.