About

Susan Garnett Russell is a professor whose research focuses on education in contexts of conflict, post-conflict, and transitional justice. Her work explores themes such as reconciliation, peacebuilding, civic identity, rights, and belonging, with specific case studies including Colombia, Rwanda, South Africa, and the United States. She investigates how education can serve as a tool for social change, peacebuilding, and the construction of collective memories of violence. Her scholarly interests include education for reconciliation and citizenship, human rights education, and the role of education in post-genocide and post-apartheid settings. The page indicates her involvement in teaching and research related to these areas, although it does not specify her academic background or detailed professional history.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Law
• Social psychology
• Geography
• Law and economics
• Public relations
• Psychology

Selected publications

• A Migratory Ecosystem: Legibility, Visibility, and the Role of Organizations in Ecuador

  International Migration Review · 2025-02-27

  article1st authorCorresponding

  With the highest number of displaced persons in history, migrants must navigate complicated systems to access rights and social services. In this article, we provide the perspective of organizational actors providing educational services to refugee and migrant populations in Ecuador. We draw on an analysis of 20 interviews with key informants to examine how global and national refugee and migratory policies shape the work of organizations. We find that organizations play an important role in navigating global and national policies around migration and education and in rendering the policies legible and the migrant populations visible. In addition, these organizations adapt an intersectoral approach, which points to the potential of education as an enabling right and also as an important link to other social services. We propose a migratory ecosystem framework for understanding the coexistence and overlap of multiple legal and policy categories and the implications for accessing social services.

  PublisherDOI

• Schools as Sites of Social Reproduction: Student Interactions in Diverse Secondary Schools in Nigeria

  Journal on Education in Emergencies · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this study, we explore intergroup relations and student interactions in eight diverse secondary schools in Nigeria over one academic year. We use mixed methods and a social network analysis of these interactions and relationships to highlight the perspectives of students within a divided society. We analyze data from student interviews we conducted and social network data from our student surveys to explore the ways students exhibit ethnic and religious relations in a school setting. This study finds that Hausa Muslims are the most segregated group within Federal Unity Colleges in Nigeria, driven by the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and language. Religion emerges as a stronger social boundary than ethnicity. Our findings also point to the importance of both academic and nonacademic spaces (such as dormitories, where students can separate into groups) in mediating student interactions. Our work contributes to the discourse in the fields of education, conflict, and peacebuilding and, more broadly, to discussions in comparative education about the role schools play in mitigating or exacerbating intergroup conflict.

  PublisherDOI

• Bilingualism, Conflicts, and Language Ideologies in Education Policies: The Case of Cameroon

  Comparative Education Review · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  This article draws on the case of conflict-affected and multilingual Cameroon to analyze how education materials address national unity and multilingualism amidst an identity crisis fueled by tensions between Anglophones and a central government accused of favoring Francophones. Through a discourse analysis of one policy document, 13 curricula, and 27 civics, history, and geography textbooks, we highlight how language ideologies diffuse in educational discourse and are used as an instrument of power or resistance to dominant ideologies and narratives that shape national identity. We find that competing language ideologies are diffused unevenly in the Anglophone and Francophone textbooks, while Francophone textbooks praise a homogenous national unity.

  PublisherDOI

• Education and Transitional Justice: <i>Como, Para, Sobre</i>

  International Journal of Transitional Justice · 2024-12-23

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Education systems play an important role in social transformation and in promoting transitional justice initiatives. While most studies on transitional justice focus on the legal or political aspects of transition, fewer studies focus on social aspects, and particularly the role of education. We examine pedagogical approaches to transitional justice and how this concept enters school spaces. Through a mixed methods study with students, teachers and school staff in 12 secondary schools in Colombia, we examine how local actors engage with ideas about transitional justice. We propose the CPS (como [as a modality], para [for the purpose of], sobre [about]) framework, which seeks to understand the nuanced and complex relationship between education and transitional justice. We find that although students and educators may not always be familiar with the language around transitional justice, many of the actions, pedagogy and activities already ongoing are in line with transitional justice goals and values.

  PublisherDOI

• Language Policies and Ideologies for Socialization and Identity-Building in U.S. Schools: The Case of Newcomer and Refugee Students in Arizona and New York

  Social Sciences · 2024-11-05 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Although multilingualism is a major issue in educational policies, especially in states hosting a high number of newcomer immigrant students, there is limited research exploring the experiences of a multilingual group of newcomer students and how they use language in schools. This article draws on 112 interviews with students from an immigrant background across four high schools in Arizona and New York. We illuminate the role of language in shaping identity and inclusion. Through conceptualizing power and language ideology, we find that language ideologies and practices shape the perception of students’ social interactions in school settings. Our findings also indicate that teachers’ practices and school policies surrounding language(s) have the potential to affect how students view language in relation to their own identity and via social interactions. We contribute to an understanding of how language policies and ideologies shape the experiences and power dynamics of diverse, multilingual, immigrant-origin students.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Orderly Entrepreneur: Youth, Education, and Governance in Rwanda. Catherine A.Honeyman, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016, 320 pp.

  Anthropology & Education Quarterly · 2022-05-05

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Belonging and Not Belonging: The Case of Newcomers in Diverse US Schools

  American Journal of Education · 2022 · 23 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Social psychology

  Purpose: Schools play an important role in the incorporation of newcomer students and for determining who belongs and does not belong to the nation-state. In this article, we analyze students’ experiences of belonging and exclusion in diverse high schools. Research Methods/Approach: We use survey and interview data from a mixed-methods study conducted in four high schools in Arizona and New York. We ask, What individual, school, and social contextual factors explain students’ sense of school belonging? How do students from diverse backgrounds understand and experience belonging in school? Findings: We find that students understand belonging as emerging from their own individual characteristics (including newcomer status and identifying as Latinx), the school environment (participation in clubs and class discussion), and their perceptions and experiences of the social context, including incidents of discrimination. Implications: Findings from our study have important implications for the role of diverse schools not only in fostering belonging but also in countering broader experiences of discrimination and exclusion.

  PublisherDOI

• Fostering Belonging and Civic Identity: Perspectives from Newcomer and Refugee Students in Arizona and New York

  2021-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This policy report focuses on high-school-aged newcomer immigrant and resettled refugee students and explores their experiences across four schools in Arizona and New York. Using mixed research methods, the report examines the ways in which these students develop a sense of belonging and civic identity, and the role of schools in influencing student growth and development. The report presents findings on diversity and inclusion, student belonging and well-being, civic identity, rights, and civic engagement, and school and community participation, as well as policy recommendations for key stakeholders.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Human Rights Violations Through Structural Violence: A Case Study of Human Rights Education in New York City

  American Educational Research Journal · 2021 · 8 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  A major area of critical scholarship within human rights education (HRE) aims to discover HRE’s revolutionary potential by questioning its relationship to the global human rights regime. However, the very concept of “human rights violations” remains underexamined. This article analyzes the use and function of human rights violations as pedagogical devices. Drawing from qualitative data collected in two public high schools in New York City (2014–2015), this study explores the limitations of teaching human rights through the legal definition of human rights violations. In doing so, HRE positions human rights violations primarily as manifestations of direct violence. We argue that to teach human rights violations also as expressions of structural violence can help students cultivate powerful and transformative forms of knowledge.

  PublisherDOI

• Gender Representation in East African History Textbooks: The Cases of Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda

  Feminist formations · 2021-01-01 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Various studies have analyzed the ways in which gender is represented in textbooks. We draw on the cases of lower secondary history textbooks from three East African countries—Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda—where gender mainstreaming has been integrated into national education policies to varying degrees. Through a qualitative analysis of nine secondary history textbooks from these countries, we investigate how gender is represented in both text and images, illuminating the power relations in these representations as well as how gender representation varies across the three country cases. Our analysis demonstrates that despite the nominal inclusion of women, the texts draw on gender-biased language, discuss women primarily in relation to men, and construct men as the default. We argue that the representation of women in the textbooks also intersects with notions of race and class, serving to perpetuate gender stereotypes and reproduce hierarchical gender relations, contradicting the gendermainstreaming policies stipulated in education curricula within the three countries.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Patricia Bromley

  Stanford University

  6 shared

• Francisco O. Ramírez

  4 shared

• Sarah Lewinger

  Boston University

  2 shared

• Prudence L. Carter

  2 shared

• Sarah Carsley

  Public Health Ontario

  2 shared

• Paula Mantilla-Blanco

  Columbia University

  2 shared

• Laura Quaynor

  Johns Hopkins University

  2 shared

• Julia C. Lerch

  2 shared

Labs

• Susan Garnett Russell's LabPI

  Not provided

Awards & honors

• Funding from the Spencer Foundation
• Funding from Dubai Cares/E-3
• Funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Funding from NSEP Boren
• Funding from the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population,…