Aaron Benavot (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies with interests in global education policy and comparative education research. Before coming to SUNY-Albany, he served four years as Senior Policy Analyst on the Education for All Global Monitoring Report team at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. He contributed to the development and drafting of four monitoring reports: Literacy for Life (2006), Strong Foundations: Early Childhood Care and Education (2007), Education for All by 2015: Will We Make It? (2008) and Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters (2009) (www.efareport.unesco.org). During this period he also participated in diverse activities undertaken by UNESCO’s Education Sector, particularly in the areas of literacy, education for sustainable development, quality learning enhancement and lifelong learning. He gained considerable insight into the achievements and setbacks of various international agencies—both governmental and non-governmental--in the movement to ensure quality education for all.
Benavot’s comparative research has explored major aspects of the evolution of basic education—for example, educational expansion and compulsory schooling, the isomorphism of official curricular policies, the diversification of secondary education, school differences in curricular implementation, the changing status of vocational education and the growth of national learning assessments. His has also carried out cross-national studies of education’s impact on economic development and political democratization. He has co-authored or edited four books including School knowledge for the masses (with J. Meyer and D. Kamens), Law and the shaping of public education (with D. Tyack and T. James), Global educational expansion: Historical legacies and political obstacles (with J. Resnik and J. Corrales) and School knowledge in comparative and historical perspective (with C. Braslavsky).
Benavot previously taught in the sociology departments at the University of Georgia (1985-1990) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1990-2007) and has served as a visiting professor at universities in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Malta, the USA, France and Israel. Benavot has been involved in European Union-sponsored socio-economic research during the 5th and 6th Framework Programmes as a consortium partner, lead partner and evaluator. He has received a post-doctoral NAE fellowship from the Spencer Foundation (USA) and a national Alon Fellowship (Israel). In 2007 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) and currently serves on the advisory boards of the Comparative Education Review, the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, Revista de Educación and The European Journal of Social Sciences.
