Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper is an Associate Professor at the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). She is currently a visiting fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Germany, focusing on critical educational research in Africa. Her work interrogates the contested role of education in perpetuating or challenging social inequalities.

Research interests revolve around Kenyan youth activism, violence in educational contexts, and the intersection of international development with local realities. Key projects include analyzing secondary students' arson protests as 'learning justice' tactics and longitudinal studies on HIV/AIDS impacts in western Kenya. She critiques the 'education alibi'—how global education agendas obscure deeper structural inequities.

Recent collaborations include co-editing a volume on Africa's educational paradoxes with Drs. Wandia Njoya and Erdmute Alber. Her Bayreuth fellowship supports three core initiatives: examining education's dual role in enabling/disempowering youth; analyzing disciplinary violence in schools; and strengthening Kenya-focused academic-activist networks.

• Book: Burning Ambition (2022, UW Press) explores Kenyan students' arson protests as political statements
• Fieldwork since 2003 in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, and Mozambique
• Past research on refugee camps, inheritance rights, and child protection policies