Aaron Benavot

Aaron Benavot (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies at the University at Albany-SUNY and a core faculty member of its Comparative and International Education Policy Program. Previously, he served four years as a senior member of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report team at UNESCO headquarters (Paris) and contributed to the development and drafting of four global monitoring reports (2006-2009). Aaron has also taught in the sociology departments at the University of Georgia (1985-1990) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1990-2007) and has served as a visiting professor at universities in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Malta, the USA and France. He is recipient of a post-doctoral Spencer Foundation fellowship (USA), a national Alon Fellowship (Israel), and is a member of the International Bureau of Education’s College of Fellows.

Benavot’s comparative research explores major aspects of the evolution of basic education—for example, the expansion of education, the prolongation of compulsory schooling, the growing similarity of official curricular policies, the diversification of secondary education, school differences in curricular implementation, the changing status of vocational education and the proliferation of national learning assessments. He has also conducted cross-national studies of education’s impact on economic development and political democratization. In addition to his journal publications, he has co-authored or edited four books: School knowledge for the masses (with Meyer and Kamens), Law and the shaping of public education (with Tyack and James), Global educational expansion: Historical legacies and political obstacles (with Resnik and Corrales) and School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective (with Braslavsky).

With respect to CIES: I attended my first conference in 1987 and have regularly presented on-going research at the annual meetings ever since. I’ve been a member of the CIES planning committees (including the 2010 annual meeting) and served an organizer, chair or discussant at many sessions. In 2007 I was elected to the CIES’s Board of Directors and later chaired the Review Committee of Society’s journal, Comparative Education Review. Over the years I’ve reviewed many manuscripts and published several papers in CER, one of which (1996) received the annual Bereday Award for best article in the journal. This year I was asked to join CER’s team of co-editors, and have gained a fascinating new perspective of emergent CIE scholarship.

In a personal vein, it would be a great honor for me to serve as vice-president of CIES, the professional society I consider my scholarly and professional home. I firmly believe that CIES should continue its long tradition of providing a dynamic setting for scholars and practitioners from diverse institutions, disciplines and countries to engage in lively and critical debates on a wide array of comparative and international education issues. I would encourage initiatives to strengthen the aims and purposes of the Society—for example, improving the contributions of special interest groups (SIGs), increasing student participation, building stronger links between CIE scholars and policy-oriented organizations, using different media to enhance the field’s visibility, and initiating outreach programs to develop the curiosity of a new generation of CIE scholars. The Society should continue to support and facilitate the enthusiasm, commitment and vitality of the association’s membership. Finally, I believe that my greatest contribution to CIES will be my ability to build bridges between the world of academe and the world of international agencies. I hope to draw upon my extensive experience in the international education community, especially at UNESCO, to better integrate CIES members and their research in the on-going activities of relevant governmental and non-governmental international organizations.

Lesley Bartlett

As an active member of CIES since 2001, I have had ample opportunities within the Society to develop my core research and teaching interests in anthropology of education, languages and literacies, migration and education, and teacher education. My publications have sought to highlight the possibilities and contradictions in the work of key theorists such as Paulo Freire, the complications of development discourse regarding literacy, and the contributions of ethnographic methods to the field. I have a strong record of service within CIES, including as an active reviewer and member the Advisory Board for Comparative Education Review, a participant in the New Scholar workshop, and a member of the George Bereday and the Gail Kelly Dissertation award committees.

I deeply value the diversity of the Society’s membership and our efforts to examine gender inequalities and cultivate junior scholars.  If elected to the Board, my primary goal will be to expand publishing opportunities in our field. I will work closely with the editors of Comparative Education Review to create mentoring opportunities that pair junior scholars from the U.S. and abroad with veteran scholars who will provide formative feedback on works-in-progress and advice on developing one's publication trajectory. This project will help our field to develop new directions by incorporating a wider variety of theoretical and epistemological viewpoints. Further, I will strongly promote the creation of more face-to-face and virtual networks and mentoring opportunities for new scholars in CIES.

W. James Jacob

Assistant Professor and Director
Institute for International Studies in Education
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA)

James Jacob joined CIES in the late 1990s. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Director of the Institute for International Studies in Education at the University of Pittsburgh. His publications have concentrated mainly on HIV/AIDS prevention and capacity building; higher education management and change; and indigenous education issues of culture, language, and identity as they relate to higher education. He obtained his PhD in social sciences and comparative education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Recent research initiatives include editing Palgrave Macmillan’s International and Development Education Book Series and serving as the Principal Investigator of an HIV/AIDS Education Capacity Building Project in East Africa with UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education (2010-2014). He has consulted with Ministries of Education and Health, ADB, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNESCO, USAID, and The World Bank on development projects in a number of international contexts. Regional areas of expertise include Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Since joining CIES he has been an active participant presenting papers and chairing panels at national and regional conferences, serving as a member of the nominations committee (2004-2008), and is currently chairing the Higher Education SIG. As a member of the board of directors there are two areas Dr. Jacob would like to focus: promoting greater emphasis on strengthening CIES Special Interest Groups as a platform for mutual scholarship, networking, research and publication projects, and increasing membership; take a special interest in emerging scholars on whom the future of the Society depends.

Sangeeta Kamat

My involvement in CIES began in graduate school when I was a doctoral student in Social and Comparative Analysis in Education at the University of Pittsburgh and has remained a significant part of my professional development as a scholar and teacher in the field. Having learnt first-hand the contribution CIES can make to the professional development of a young scholar, I see it as part of my responsibility to facilitate the participation of my students in CIES meetings and recruit successive new generations into the association. I first joined CIES in 1990 and I have remained a committed and involved member of the association ever since. I am one of the founders of the Globalization and Education SIG, and have served on the Nominations Committee and the Gail Kelly Dissertation Award Committee. At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, I have the opportunity to develop the work of our field through graduate seminars I offer and through mentoring students in the international education program.

My research is on critiques of state, development and the NGO sector, the interplay between nationalism and globalization in postcolonial societies, and educational restructuring in the context of neoliberalism. My book Development Hegemony: NGOs and the State in India (Oxford University Press) was one of the earliest in the field to explore the NGO sector and its implications for international development education. My publications have appeared in Comparative Education, Globalization, Societies and Education, Review of International Political Economy and Development. While my primary site for research is India, I am actively involved in education issues and projects concerning the South Asian diaspora in the U.S.  which has allowed me to develop a transnational and transcultural perspective on international education.

The current global conjuncture provides renewed vitality and significance to the work of CIES as is witnessed by the increase in membership and conference participation. I am honored to have the opportunity to become more deeply involved in the work of the association and value the responsibility it entails. In my capacity as board member, one of my areas of focus will be to better integrate students and young scholars into the established community of scholars at CIES. This will involve developing new fellowships for graduate students and expanding mentoring and professional development opportunities. My other priorities include strengthening the reputation and visibility of CIES, recruiting faculty from other disciplines and programs whose work ties in with our field, and facilitating connections between CIES and other comparative education societies, in particular with associations that are based in the South.