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. Since then, my experience evolved in three directions:

 

• Comparative policy studies in education:

Education sector strategies and reviews in a development context, school reform (curriculum; student, teacher and school assessment; governance and social accountability), public-private partnership in education, privatization of public education from a critical perspective and teacher education reform, including teacher salary reform.

 

• Theories and debates in international and comparative education:

Transnational policy borrowing/lending, globalization, education and revolution/political change, disenfranchised minorities and schooling, social and institutional network analysis of international organizations, colonial and postcolonial studies in education.

 

• Comparative methodology:

My research relies on multiple case study methodology, mixed methods designs, indicator research, applied program evaluation.

 

Though I see myself as a topical rather than an [geographic] area expert, I happened — due to a series of fortuitous coincidences — to conduct research and initiate applied projects mainly in Europe, in the former Soviet Union and in Mongolia. I anticipate increasing involvement in educational reform in the Middle East.

 

Iranian by birth, Swiss by upbringing, and US citizen by naturalization, I speak and write English, German, French and Persian.