For the first ten years of my professional life I worked on multicultural and anti-racists education policies at the Ministry of Education in the Canton of Zurich (Switzerland). By virtue of comparing policies in different countries of immigration (U.K., Canada, U.S.A.), I got and stayed involved in comparative education methods and theories. Since then my experience evolved in three directions:

International education policy studies:
Education sector strategies and reviews in a development context, school reform (curriculum; student, teacher and school assessment; governance and social accountability) and teacher education reform (including teacher salary reform)
 

Theories and debates in international and comparative education:
Transnational policy borrowing/lending, globalization, education and revolution/political change, disenfranchised minorities and schooling, social and institutional network analysis of international organizations, colonial and postcolonial studies in education
 

Comparative methodology:
Multiple case study methodology, mixed methods designs, indicator research, applied program evaluation

Even though I tend to see myself as a topic rather than as an [geographic] area expert, I happened—due to a series of lucky coincidences— to conduct research and initiate applied project mainly in Europe, in the former Soviet Union and in Mongolia. I anticipate getting involved in educational reform in the Middle East.

Iranian by birth, Swiss by upbringing, and U.S. citizen by naturalization, I speak and write English, German, French and Persian.
 

Also see GEOGRAPHICAL BIOGRAPHY in Project section.

Gita Steiner-Khamsi Commencement Ceremony: Honorary Ph.D., Mongolia University

Evaluation meeting in Mongolia

Posing in front of Marx and Engels Statue: Gita Steiner-Khamsi with Nurbek Teleshaliyev, UNICEF Bishkek)

Working with co-producer and Ph.D. student (Eric Johnson) on the "Comparatively Speaking" video project - 2005

Gita Steiner-Khamsi posing in front of a national advertisement poster in Kyrgyzstan

Visiting a nomadic herder family in Issykul Oblast, Kyrgyz Republic, with Natasha Ridge (Ed.D. student) and Saule Hamzina (Soros Foundation Kyrgyzstan and World Bank) - 2006
 

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