About 

Pempho Chinkondenji is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota. Her research is situated in the field of comparative and international education and broadly examines structural inequalities within educational policies and practices, with emphasis on African and African diaspora communities.

 

More specifically, Dr. Chinkondenji's research lies at the intersection of education, gender justice, student pregnancy, refugee education, and forced displacement. Grounded in African onto-epistemologies, her scholarship draws from African feminisms, Ubuntu, and post/de-colonial thought to interrogate gender and power dynamics in international education. Methodologically, she utilizes participatory visual methods such as photovoice and digital storytelling to conduct educational research. 

 

Dr. Chinkondenji's forthcoming book (In press), Drop-out, Push-out, or Walk-out?, centers on issues of social justice and equity for pregnant learners and school-aged mothers in international contexts, critically challenging dominant notions of studenthood and motherhood within and beyond educational spaces. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Gender and Education, Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, and Comparative Education Review, among others. She has received various awards, including the 2025 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 2024 Gail P. Kelly Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation conferred by the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).