Nancy Kendall

Department of Educational Policy Studies, School of Education; African Studies Program

Education

PhD, International and Comparative Education, Stanford University, 2004
BA, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Brown University, 1996

Nancy Kendall is a professor of Educational Policy Studies for the School of Education. Her research examines the consequences of national and international policies and funding streams directed at improving the lives and wellbeing of children, communities, and states positioned as “marginalized” by national and international regimes.

Kendall is the director of the African Studies Program. She is also affiliated with the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and a member of the 4W Initiative Leadership Circle and the Advisory Committee for the Global Health Institute.

Research projects have examined Education for All, political democratization and educational governance, structural adjustment and education, US higher education, sexuality and HIV/AIDS education, and gender and schooling. Kendall has conducted extended research in Malawi, Mozambique, and the U.S., and has conducted short-term research in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Zimbabwe. Kendall was a 2009 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellow, and 2019 recipient of the Lyle Spencer Foundation Award. She has received research support from the Fulbright Foundation, Social Science Research Council, TAG Philanthropic Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, WT Grant Foundation, and Lumina Foundation, among others. She is the author of The Sex Education Debates (University of Chicago Press, 2012), and has published in journals including Compare, Comparative Education Review, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Educational Assessment Evaluation and Accountability, International Journal of Educational Development, and Sexuality Research and Social Policy.