DrArif Kabir

Dr Arif Kabir is an experienced academic and researcher with a diverse teaching portfolio that includes reflexive pedagogies and evidence-based curriculum development at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Australia, Bangladesh, and New Zealand. His teaching career began at the Institute of Education and Research at the University of Dhaka, where he taught teacher education and sociology of education for over 15 years. Additionally, he served as a sessional academic at the School of Education at Deakin University from 2018 to 2023.

Dr Arif's most significant contributions lie in the fields of international and comparative education, policy sociology, coloniality and higher education, and teacher education. During his PhD research at the Faculty of Education at Monash University, he explored the necessity of studying the 'micro-politics' of a context to understand the formulation of neoliberal ideas in developing countries like Bangladesh. His research demonstrated that the concept of 'semi-peripheral references' as externalization has become a dominant higher education policy strategy in Bangladesh. By shifting away from references to 'best practices' or 'international standards' and towards practices in countries with similar non-Western socio-economic and political contexts, policy actors have justified the adoption of contested neoliberal ideas into Bangladesh's higher education policies.

Arif has also been involved in numerous collaborative research projects funded by various national and international agencies, including the World Bank, DFID, and ADB. He is also a recipient of Endeavour Fellowship and Scholarship (AUS$234,300) from the DEEWR, Australian Government, for undertaking a PhD (2012-2016), and a recipient of the Postgraduate Publications Award (PPA) (AUS $6300) from the Monash University. His work spans different country contexts, reflecting a global perspective on education policy and practice. His research has been published in highly prestigious journals such as the Journal of Education Policy, Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Journal of Studies in International Education, Comparative Education, International Journal of Training and Research, Policy Futures in Education, Multilingual Education, PLOS ONE, and The Qualitative Report. Additionally, he co-authored a book entitled The Privatisation of Higher Education in Postcolonial Bangladesh: The Politics of Intervention and Control (2021, Routledge). He also serves as the senior editor for the Education Policy Section at Cogent Education (Taylor and Francis).