New
Department:
Organizational
Leadership, Policy,
and Development
Effective July 1, 2009, a
new department has been created
that integrates the business and
marketing education, human
resource development and adult
education, and comprehensive
WHRE programs from the
Department of
Work and Human Resource
Education (WHRE) into the
department formerly known as
Educational Policy and
Administration (EdPA). The
name of this new department is
Organizational Leadership,
Policy, and Development (OLPD).
It will offer exciting
opportunities for collaboration
and interdisciplinary education
and research. Click
here for details. |
Current Research Interests
- Comparative and international education
- Education and population change
- Gender and development
- International development policy and practice
- Secondary and teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Profile
I joined the faculty in the Department of Educational Policy and
Administration in August 2008, where I serve in the
comparative
and international development education (CIDE) program. Prior to my
appointment at the University of Minnesota, I was a faculty member at Teachers
College, Columbia University for eight years. I was a tenured associate
professor in the programs in comparative and international educational
development and associate director of the Center for African Education. Before
assuming my position at Teachers College, I was an Andrew Mellon/Takemi
Postdoctoral Fellow in anthropological demography at the Harvard School of
Public Health. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (major
field: education; minor fields: African history and educational policy studies),
an M.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (major field:
TESOL/applied linguistics; minor field: African studies), and a B.A. from Purdue
University (major field: psychology; minor field: political science).
My research and teaching are in the fields of
comparative and international education and international
development, and my principal interest lies in exploring how
schooling is situated in these fields as a solution to a
host of complex development problems. By looking
historically at the cultural, economic, and political bases
of arguments to bolster schooling for certain segments of
the population in Sub-Saharan Africa—my primary geographical
area of interest—I seek to advance understanding of the
transformative potential of education as well as its
limitations. My research is informed primarily by the
disciplines of anthropology, history, and political science
(especially international relations), and my principal work
uses an ethnographic approach to explore how people make
sense of educational development narratives that emerge from
local, national, and international interactions. I also
conduct research that utilizes critical discourse analysis
and survey methods to address, respectively, questions
regarding poverty reduction policies and the long-term
impact of secondary schooling on the life course of African
youth. My longitudinal ethnographic and survey research
focuses on the Kilimanjaro Region of northern Tanzania,
where I have intermittently lived, taught, and studied since
1992. I have been a teacher at the secondary and tertiary
levels in the region, and I have taught a summer course on
‘development in practice’ for U.S. graduate
students on several occasions. At present, I am involved in
a teacher education program for Tanzanian secondary school
teachers and teacher educators as well as research examining
the cultural politics of pedagogical reform in Africa within
the context of international development.
In addition to research and teaching, I am also actively
involved in comparative and international education as a
board member of the
Comparative and International Education Society and as
an advisory board member for the
Comparative Education Review. At the University of
Minnesota, I am involved in international development as an
affiliate of the
Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change,
the Minnesota Population
Center, and the
Office of
International Programs' Advisory Committee on Africa.
Selected Publications
Books
Vavrus, F., and Bartlett, L. (Eds.) (2009). Critical approaches to comparative education:
Vertical case studies from Africa, Europe, the Middle East,
and the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan.
Vavrus, F. (2003). Desire and
decline: Schooling amid crisis in Tanzania. Peter Lang
Publishing.
Articles
Vavrus, F., & Seghers, M. (forthcoming). Critical discourse
analysis in comparative education: A discursive study of ‘partnership’ in
Tanzania’s poverty reduction policies. Comparative Education Review.
Vavrus, F. (2009). The cultural politics of
constructivist pedagogies: Teacher education reform in the United Republic of
Tanzania. International Journal of Educational Development, 29(3),
303-311.
Vavrus, F. (2006). Girls’ schooling in
Tanzania: The key to HIV/AIDS prevention? AIDS Care, 18(8),
863-871.
Vavrus, F. (2005). Adjusting inequality:
Education and structural adjustment programs in Tanzania.
Harvard Educational Review, 75(2), 174-201.
Bryan, A. & Vavrus, F. (2005). The
promise and peril of education: The teaching of in/tolerance
in an era of globalization. Globalisation, Societies,
and Education, 3(2), 183-202.
Academic Degrees
- Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998
- M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991
- B.A., Purdue University, 1987
Academic Positions
- Associate professor - University of Minnesota (August 2009-present)
- Assistant professor - University of Minnesota (August 2008-August 2009)
- Associate professor with tenure - Teachers College, Columbia University
(2006-2008)
- Associate professor - Teachers College, Columbia University (2004-2006)
- Associate director - Teachers College Center for African Education
(2004-2008)
- Assistant professor - Teachers College, Columbia University (2000-2004)
Selected Honors
- Comparative Education Review, Advisory Board
Member (2008–present)
- Comparative and International Education Society, Elected Board Member (2007 –
2010)
- Comparative and International Education Society, Annual
Meeting Program Co-chair
(2007-2008)
- Fulbright Scholars Fellowship (Tanzania) (2006-2007)
- Joyce Cain Award for Outstanding Research, Comparative and International
Education Society (2006)
- Excellence in Teaching Award, Teachers College (2001, 2004)
- Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Anthropological Demography, Harvard
School of Public Health, Harvard University (1999-2001)
Professional Affiliations
For more information about Frances Vavrus, see her full
curriculum vitae [PDF].
Revised September 2009
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