Monisha Bajaj

Dr. Monisha Bajaj is Professor of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. She is the editor and author of eight books and numerous articles on issues of peace, human rights, migration, and education, and is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Human Rights Education. Dr. Bajaj has developed curriculum and teacher training materials—particularly related to human rights, racial justice, ethnic studies, and sustainability—for non-profit and national advocacy organizations as well as inter-governmental organizations, such as UNICEF and UNESCO. In 2015, she received the Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award (2015) from Division B of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Dr. Bajaj has contributed guest blogs for educational sites such as Learning for Justice and Edutopia, and her TedX talk can be found on Youtube.

• Education and Development in the Global South
• Peace and Human Rights Education
• Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth

• Education & International Development; International & Comparative Education
• Human Rights Education
• Peace Education
• Educational Innovation in the Global South
• Gender and Schooling
• Global Education
• Immigrants and Refugees

• EdD, International Educational Development, Teachers College, Columbia University
• MA, Latin American Studies, Stanford University
• BA, Sociology, Stanford University

• University of San Francisco Faculty Distinguished Research Award (2018)
• Resident Fellow, Thematic Residency on Youth as Agents of Transformative Change, Rockefeller Bellagio Center (2017)
• American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division B Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award (2015)
• Distinguished Alumni Early Career Award, Columbia University Teachers College (2015)
• National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow (2008)

• Bajaj, M., Walsh, D., Bartlett, L. & Martínez, G. (2023). Educating Immigrant and Refugee Youth: 20 Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond. Teachers College Press. 
• Scott, J.T. & Bajaj, M. (Eds). (2023). World Yearbook of Education 2023: Racialization and Educational Inequality in Global Perspective. Routledge.
• Hantzopoulos, M. & Bajaj, M. (2021). Educating for peace and human rights: An introduction. Bloomsbury.
• Bajaj, M. (Ed.). (2017). Human rights education: Theory, research, praxis. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Bajaj, M. & Hantzopoulos, M. (Eds.). (2016). Peace education: International perspectives. Bloomsbury. [Honorable Mention for the 2017 Prose Award in Educational Practice]
• Bajaj, M., Cislaghi, B. & Mackie, G. (2016). Advancing transformative human rights education [Appendix D to the Report of the Global Citizenship Commission]. Open Book Publishers.
• Bajaj, M. (2011). Schooling for social change: The rise and impact of human rights education in India. Continuum/Bloomsbury. [Winner of the 2012 Jackie Kirk Book Award]
• Bajaj, M. (Ed.) (2008). The encyclopedia of peace education Information Age Publishing.

• Bajaj, M. & Suresh, S. (2018). The "warm embrace" of a newcomer school for immigrant & refugee youth. Theory into Practice, 57(2), 91-98.
• Bajaj, M., Argenal, A. & Canlas, M. (2017). Socio-politically relevant pedagogy for immigrant and refugee youth. Equity & Excellence in Education 50(3), 258-274.
• Bajaj, M. & Bartlett, L. (2017). Critical transnational curriculum for immigrant and refugee youth. Curriculum Inquiry, 47.
• Bajaj, M., Argenal, A. & Canlas, M. (2017). Between rights and realities: Human rights education for immigrant and refugee youth in an urban public high school. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 48(2), 124-140.
• Bajaj, M., Ghaffar-Kucher, A., & Desai, K. (2016). Brown bodies and xenophobic bullying in U.S. schools: Critical analysis and strategies for action . Harvard Educational Review, 86 (4), 481-505.
• Vega-Chaparro, L. & Bajaj, M. (2016). The right to education in protracted conflict: Teachers’ experiences in non-formal education in Colombia. Globalisation, Societies and Education , 14 (3), 358-373.
• Canlas, M., Argenal, A. & Bajaj, M. (2015). Teaching human rights from below: Towards solidarity, resistance and social justice. Radical Teacher, 103 , 38-46.
• Bajaj, M. (2015). Human rights education: Imaginative possibilities for creating change. Teachers College Record , 117 (10), 1-9.
• Hantzopoulos, M., Zakharia, Z., Shirazi, R., Bajaj, M. & Ghaffar-Kucher, A. (2015). New curricular approaches to teaching about the Middle East and North Africa. Social Studies Research and Practice, 10 (1), 84-93.
• Bajaj, M. (2015). ‘Pedagogies of resistance’ and critical peace education praxis. Journal of Peace Education, 12 (2), 154-166.
• Bajaj, M. (2014). The productive plasticity of rights: Globalization, education and human rights. In N. Stromquist & K. Monkman (Eds.), Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures (2nd ed.) (pp. 51-66). Lanham, D: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Bajaj, M. (2012). Human rights education in small schools in India. Peace Review, 24 (1), 6-13.
• Bajaj, M. (2012). From ‘time pass’ to transformative force: School-based human rights education in Tamil Nadu, India. International Journal of Educational Development, 32 (1), 72-80.
• Bajaj, M. & Pathmarajah, M. (2011). En‘gender’ing Agency: The differentiated impact of educational initiatives in Zambia and India. Feminist Formations, 23 (3), 48-67.
• Iyengar, R. & Bajaj, M. (2011). After the smoke clears: Examining curricular approaches to environmental education in Bhopal, India. Comparative Education Review, 55( 3), 424-456.
• Bajaj, M. & Brantmeier, E. (Special issue guest editors). (2011). The politics, possibilities and praxis of a critical peace education. Journal of Peace Education, 8 (3), 221-224.
• Bajaj, M. (2011). Human rights education: Ideology, location, and approaches. Human Rights Quarterly, 33, 481-508.
• Bajaj, M. (2011). Teaching to transform, transforming to teach: Exploring the role of teachers in human rights education in India. Educational Research, 53 (2), 207.
• Bajaj, M. (2010). Inter-generational perspectives on education and employment in the Zambian Copperbelt. Comparative Education Review, 54 (2), 175-197.
• Bajaj, M. (2010). Conjectures on peace education and Gandhian studies: Method, institutional development, and globalization. Journal of Peace Education, 7 (1), 47-62.
• Bajaj, M. (2009). Why context matters: The material conditions of caring in Zambia. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22 (4), 379–398.
• Bajaj, M. (2009). ‘I have big things planned for my future’: The limits and possibilities of transformative agency in Zambian schools. Compare, 39 (4), 551-568.
• Bajaj, M. (2009). Undoing gender?: A case study of school policy and practice in Zambia. International Review of Education, 55 (5), 483-502.
• Bajaj, M. & Chiu, B. (2009). Education for sustainable development as peace education. Peace & Change, 34 (4), 441-455.
• Bajaj, M. (2009). Sugar daddies and the danger of sugar: Cross-generational relationships, HIV/AIDS and secondary schooling in Zambia. In A. Wiseman & D. Baker (Eds.), Gender, equality and education from international and comparative perspectives (pp. 123-143). Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.
• Bajaj, M. (2008). Schooling in the shadow of death: Youth agency and HIV/AIDS in Zambia. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 43 (3), 307-329.
• Bajaj, M. (2004). Human rights education and student self-conception in the Dominican Republic. Journal of Peace Education, 1 (1), 21-36.

Public Scholarships

• Blog Posts for the Teaching Tolerance Website of the Southern Poverty Law Center
• Blog Posts for the Global Partnership for Education, housed at the World Bank, Washington, D.C.

Online Curricular Resources

• “Rethinking the Region: New Approaches to 9-12 Curriculum on the Middle East and North Africa ”. A funded project of the Social Science Research Council and the British Council’s Shared Past Initiative. [Principal Investigator: Maria Hantzopoulos; Co-Investigators: Monisha Bajaj, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, Roozbeh Shirazi, Zeena Zakharia].
• “In the Face of Xenophobia: Addressing the Bullying of South Asian and Muslim Youth in U.S. Schools and Communities .” In collaboration with SAALT: South Asians Leading Together. (2013, with Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher & Karishma Desai)