Position/Status

Assistant Professor of Education and International Development

Fellow and Director of Studies in Education, Jesus College

E-mail Address

nbn25@cam.ac.uk

Phone

+ 44 (0)1223 767600

Qualifications

• PhD, Educational Foundations and Inquiry, University of South Carolina
• Graduate Certificate, Qualitative Research, University of South Carolina
• MA, African History, University of Rochester
• BA, Religion and History, Nebraska Wesleyan University

Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations

• Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
• American Educational Research Association (AERA)
• British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE)
• African Studies Association (ASA)

Profile

Noella Binda Niati is an Assistant Professor of Education and International Development. Her research examines the nonformal educative spaces young people foster to counter sociopolitical inequalities through the lens of Hip-Hop pedagogy, (reverse)migration and critical development discourses in West and Central Africa. She explores these themes through a mixed methods lens examining sociopolitical inequalities, epistemic disobedience, the socio-cultural context of language, authenticity and the role of the state in structuring (in)access.

Binda has worked with the Research, Evaluation and Measurement Center and the Rule of Law Collaborative in the USA, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Cote d'Ivoire and the Education sector of the UNESCO Regional office in Senegal. Her work is often mixed methods with an emphasis on culturally responsive evaluation and critical statistical analysis. Prior to joining the Faculty, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany on a mixed methods project assessing returns to education, occupational aspirations and engagement among young people in Senegal.

Binda has published in a variety of international peer reviewed journals across the fields of research methods, language and education, and comparative and international education. Her research has been funded by the German Research Foundation, the Fulbright Program and the NSEP Boren Fellowship.

Passionate about young people, social activism, gender equality and access to education in sub-Saharan Africa, Binda is committed to work that considers young people to be at the helm of social change using liberatory pedagogical praxes.

Research Topics

• Fields: Comparative & International Education; Hip-Hop Pedagogy; Critical Qualitative Inquiry, Mixed Methods Research; Development Studies; African Studies
• Topical: Youth engagement nonformal educative spaces and sociopolitical inequalities in west and central Africa; language; (reverse) migration; epistemic disobedience; critical development studies on youth engagement

Current Research Project(s)

• Coping with Failed Aspirations: Resignation, Internalisation, Contestation, or Escape
• High Hopes and Broken Promises: Young Adult Life Courses in Senegal
• Hustlin the life course: Hip-Hop in waithood

Teaching

• Postgraduate
  • MPhil Education, Globalisation and International Development
  • Research Methods Strand
• Undergraduate
  • Critical Debates in Education, Policy and International Development
  • International Issues in Inclusion and Diversity

Supervision

Dr Niati is currently accepting PhD applications. 

Principal and Recent Publications

Niati, N.B. (2024). “Navigating the in-between: A cross-cultural researcher's fluid positionality in West Africa.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 23. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231200335.

Niati, N.B. & Shah, P.P. (2022). “Transhiphop pedagogy and epistemic disobedience in Senegal.” International Journal of Research & Methods in Education, 45(3), pp. 271-283.

Stohry, H. R., Niati, B., & Doyle, J. L. (2022). Academic misfits: De/constructing academic un/belonging through “Guardians of the Galaxy.” In D. Friedrich, J. Corson, & D. Hollman (Eds.). Pop Culture and Curriculum, Assemble! Exploring the Limits of Curricular Humanism Through Pop Culture. DIO Press.