Research

Research Network

Dr. Jo Kelcey

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Jo Kelcey received her PhD in International Education from New York University in May 2020. She also holds an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a BA from the University of Sheffield (UK). Her doctoral dissertation drew on archival research and interviews to explore how the competing and often contradictory demands of the international aid system have shaped UNRWA’s education program and the implications this has for Palestinian refugees. Underscoring this study was a concern with whether and how conventional understandings and related practices of education as a public good anchored in the nation-state can relate to the challenges experienced by people living in situations of protracted displacement and statelessness. During her fellowship, Jo will pursue two main strands of research. She will continue to examine the ways in which globalization and internationalization shape education systems with a particular focus on education policies and outcomes in Lebanon. She also plans to explore the politics of knowledge production at the intersections of research on education and conflict by examining who conducts research on this topic, where research is conducted, the methods employed in these studies and the factors that drive this increasingly popular research agenda. 

Publications

  1. Kelcey, J. (2019). “Incredibly Difficult, Tragically Needed, and Absorbingly Interesting”: Lessons from the AFSC School Program for Palestinian Refugees in Gaza, 1949 to 1950. Journal for Education in Emergencies, 5(1): 12-34.
  2. Kelcey, J. & Chatila, S. (forthcoming, Fall 2020). Increasing inclusion or expanding exclusion? How the global strategy to include refugees in national education systems has been implemented in Lebanon. Refuge.
  3. Kelcey, J. (2019). “Whose knowledge?” Putting politics back into curriculum choices for refugees.” In, Education as a Panacea for Refugee Youth: Transitioning from Conflict to the Classroom. (Wiseman, A., Damascke-Deitrick, L., Gallegher, E., & M. Park (Eds). (Routledge).