Gita Steiner-Khamsi

Professor of Comparative and International Education

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York

UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy of the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

For the first ten years of my professional life, I worked on multicultural and anti-racist education policies at the Ministry of Education in the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland.

By virtue of comparing policies in different countries of immigration (U.K., Canada, USA.), I became involved in comparative education methods and theories.

In 1995, I joined the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. Since then, my research evolved in three directions:

Comparative Policy Studies

The study of reforms that travel across countries. Related research areas: policy transfer, diffusion of innovation, and policy borrowing, in particular, system-theoretical studies on externalization, reception, and translation.

Global Governance in Education

How do international organizations govern in the absence of coercive measures and, vice versa, how do governments react to global norm setting? Current research areas: knowledge brokerage as a global governance tool, soft governance by means of international comparison, transnational accreditation of public schools.

Comparative Methodology

Multiple case study methodology, mixed methods design, indicator research, interpretation of social network analysis and bibliometric analyses.