Dr Maren Elfert worked as a member of the professional staff at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in Hamburg for over a decade. In 2011 she moved to Canada to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of British Columbia, which she received in 2016.

From 2017-2018 Dr Elfert spent two years as postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, before joining King’s College London in 2019.

Research

Dr. Elfert’s research focuses on global governance of education and the influence of international organisations on educational ideas and policies. Drawing on archival research and interviews, she often takes a historical approach to tracing the influence of international organisations on the evolution of educational concepts. She has published on the history of the educational work of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank, global agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and lifelong learning as a global policy concept. She is the author of UNESCO’s Utopia of Lifelong Learning: An Intellectual History (2018), and Global Governance of Education: The Historical and Contemporary Entanglements of UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank (co-authored with Christian Ydesen, 2023). Her research has been funded by a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship, a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship and a British Academy/Leverhulme small grant.

In the video below, Dr. Elfert and her co-author present their book on the “Global Governance of Education” at the KCL book launch event in October 2023.

Research interests

• International and comparative education
• Global governance of education
• The role of international organisations in education
• Global agendas and policies

PhD supervision

Dr. Elfert is interested in supervising students who work on topics related to international and comparative education and global governance, in particular the educational work of international organisations and the ideological underpinnings of education from a historical perspective (such as humanistic approaches, economics of education, lifelong learning). She is also interested in policy studies, in particular relating to adult education and lifelong learning.

Teaching

At King’s, Dr. Elfert co-teaches the modules “The Political Economy of Education in a Globalised World”, “International and Comparative Education”, “Education and International Development”, and “Gender, Power and Inequality in Educational Leadership” and contributes to the teaching in a range of modules across MA education programmes in the School of Education, Communication & Society.

As a teacher Dr Elfert is inspired by humanistic and hermeneutic traditions and radical and critical educators such as Paulo Freire. She aims to create an inclusive atmosphere in which students feel comfortable to engage in stimulating discussions.

Further information

For further information, visit Dr Elfert's research page on PURE.