Simona Popa UNESCO International Bureau of Education C.P. 199, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland Email: s.popa@unesco.org

• University of Pittsburgh (PhD in Comparative Education–International Development in Education/Social and Comparative Analysis in Education, 2007)
• University of Pittsburgh(MEd in Comparative Education, 2001)
• University of Bucharest (MA, Comparative Literature, 1997)
• University of Bucharest (BA/Licentiate in Romanian and French languages and literatures, 1995)

• Comparative and International Education Planning and Policy
• Curriculum Reforms in Developing and Transition Countries
• Supplementary Private Tutoring
• Accountability and Quality Assurance Policies in Secondary Education
• Teachers’ Work and the State
• Inclusive Education

Professional Biography

Simona Popa is a Consultant with the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (whose main activities focus on strengthening capacity-building in the area of management of curriculum change; and on analyzing and disseminating educational documentation, especially on innovations concerning curricula and teaching methods). Prior to working with UNESCO, Simona served as an Assistant to the Director of the Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE) at University of Pittsburgh, where she also received her PhD. At the University of Pittsburgh, she contributed to the proposal writing, fund raising, and promotion of many technical assistance and research projects–among others, she was involved in the USAID-funded action-research project on Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) in developing countries, by undertaking a case study in secondary education reform and contributing to the conceptualization of IEQ approach and experience around topics such as: definitions of educational quality, sources of knowledge used in policy and practice decisions, degrees of (de)centralization in efforts to implement and sustain improvements in educational quality, paradigms and approaches that inform empirical research activity. While at the University of Pittsburgh, she was also a Managing Editor of the Comparative Education Review, one of the leading journals in the field, sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society.

Currently, she is an Assistant Editor of PROSPECTS, UNESCO's Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, and she serves on the editorial boards of World Studies in Education and European Education. She also founded and edited the EdPitt Research Journal, the first graduate student journal of the School of Education at Pitt, and has been an Associate Editor of the international education research journal In Focus (Florida International University).

Simona is also holding an appointment with Drexel University, where she teaches classes in comparative and international education.

Research Interests & Current Projects

Dr. Popa's research agenda focuses on the analysis of the relation between education reforms, the increasing commercialization, marketization and privatization of public/free education and teachers’ professional identity and practice in developing and transition countries. Her current research projects include a study on the relation between teachers’ work and the state in transition countries; an article on ethics and corruption in the Moldavian secondary education; and a book chapter on “Teachers’ Work and the Politics of Curriculum Reforms.”

Courses Taught

• Education and National Development (Drexel University)
• History & Theory of Comparative Education (Drexel University)
• Introduction to Global & International Education (Drexel University)
  

Selected Publications

Popa, Simona. (In progress). Measuring the Incommensurable: Quality Control and Transformations of Teacher Professionalism in Romania. In Clemintina Acedo (Ed.), Quality and Qualities: Tensions between Global and Local in Education Reforms . Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Popa, Simona. (In progress). Professionalism for Sale: School Reform and Teachers’ Work in the Romanian Private Tutoring System. In Joseph Zajda et al. (Eds.), Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Popa, Simona; & Acedo, Clementina. (2006). Redefining Professionalism: Romanian Secondary Education Teachers and the Supplementary Private Tutoring System. International Journal of Education Development, 26(1): 98–110

Ginsburg, Mark; Espinoza, Oscar; Popa, Simona; & Terano, Mayumi. (2004). Globalization and Higher Education in Chile and Romania: The Roles of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. In Joseph Zajda et al. (Eds.), International Handbook on Globalization, Education and Policy Research: Global Pedagogies and Policies. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Ginsburg, Mark; Espinoza, Oscar; Popa, Simona; & Terano, Mayumi. (2003). Privatization, Domestic Marketization, and International Commercialization of Higher Education: Vulnerabilities and Opportunities for Chile and Romania within the Framework of WTO/GATS. Globalization, Societies, and Education, 1(3), 413–445.

Acedo, Clementina; & Popa, Simona. (2003). Reforming the Romanian Education in the 1990s. International Journal of Education Reform, 12(2).

Popa, Simona; & Acedo, Clementina. (2002). Romanian Secondary Education Reform: Case Study. In Clementina Acedo (Ed.), Education Reform Case Studies. USAID Improving Education Quality. Washington, DC: USAID.

Ginsburg, Mark; Schubert, Jane; Alimasi, Ntal; Belalcazar, Carolina; Gorostiaga, Jorge; & Popa, Simona. (2001). Choices in Improving Educational Quality in “Developing” Countries: A Conceptual Framework. USAID Improving Educational Quality Project. Washington, DC: USAID.