Skip to main content
Kathryn Moeller

Kathryn Moeller

University Associate Professor

Qualifications

  • Ph.D. Social & Cultural Studies Graduate School of Education University of California Berkeley - Designated Emphasis in Women Gender and Sexuality Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
  • MA Curriculum & Teaching College of Education, Michigan State University
  • BS Sociology and Human & Organizational Development, Vanderbilt University - Minor in African American & Diaspora Studies

Memberships/Professional Bodies

Personal profile

I am a life-long educator with twenty-five years of experience. I first began as a high school teacher in the US and Honduras. At Cambridge, I co-coordinate the MPhil in Knowledge, Power & Politics, and I also co-coordinate a strategic international partnership, the Transnational Anti-racism in Education Research & Exchange Programme, between Cambridge, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and the State University of Bahia. 

My research focuses on understanding corporate power and its influence on education and society. I am currently writing the book, Silicon Futures: How Silicon Valley Influences Education around the World, supported by Leverhulme Trust and the Spencer Foundation. I am also the author of The Gender Effect: Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development (University of California Press 2018), winner of the National Women’s Studies Association’s Sara A. Whaley Prize. 

My research has also been funded by grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, Fulbright, Fulbright Hays, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. My academic writing has been published in scholarly journals, such as Feminist Theory; Educational Researcher; Journal of Education Policy; Race, Ethnicity & Education; Feminist Studies; British Journal of Sociology of Education; Globalisation, Education & Societies; Education Policy Analysis Archives; and International Journal of Education Development. I have also written essays for The New Yorker, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Fast Company, and The Huffington Post based on my research and appeared on BBC’s Business Daily, NPR’s Marketplace, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Central Time, and Northeast Public Radio’s 51%. 

I am an editor of Feminist Studies, the first scholarly journal in the field of gender, feminist, and women’s studies in the U.S. I have previously held academic appointments at the University of Glasgow, Stanford University, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Haas Institute for a Fair & Inclusive Society (now Othering & Belonging Institute) at University of California, Berkeley. 

I received my Ph.D. (2012) from the Social and Cultural Studies Program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley with a Designated Emphasis in Gender & Women’s Studies. I have an MA in Curriculum & Teaching from Michigan State University, and a BS in Sociology and Human & Organizational Development, with a minor in African American & Diaspora Studies, from Vanderbilt University

Academic Area/Links

  • Global Justice Collective Research Group

Postgraduate

  • Masters in Knowledge Power & Politics
  • Ph.D. in Education

Undergraduate

  • Tripos in Education

Prospective Ph.D. Students

I will be accepting applications for doctoral students with a strong background in critical social theories to start their studies in October 2026.

You are welcome to email me prior to applying.  I will attempt to respond to these emails, but please note that I will not review or give input on project proposals before a formal application is received.  

For Masters applications, it is not necessary to identify a supervisor before applying and no contact prior to application is expected.

Research Topics

  • Political economy of education and international development
  • Transnational feminisms
  • Global raciality and anti-racism

Current Research Project(s)

  • Silicon Futures: How Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists Shape Education around the World
  • Global raciality, anti-racism and knowledge production in a transnational perspective (with Dr. Amilcar Pereira and Dr. Haira Gandolfi)

Book

Moeller, K. (2018). The Gender Effect: Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development. Oakland: University of California Press.

Articles & Chapters

Moeller, K. (2025). "Conclusion: Reflections and Provocations on De/colonising Development and Education." In Faul, M. V. (Ed.). Transforming Development in Education: From Coloniality to Rethinking, Reframing and Reimagining Possibilities (pp. 203-214). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Moeller, K., Kanopka, K., French, J., Hook, T., & Sedighi, M. (2024). "Educational capitalisation: a co-formational feminist framework for conceptualising investment in for-profit education within the racialised and gendered political economy." Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2024.2397811

Moeller, K. (2024) "The risky business of research: the control of academic knowledge production and the racialized & gendered contours of corporate power." Feminist Theory. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14647001241284984.

Dalmaso-Junqueira, B. & Moeller, K. (2024). "An analytic framework for theorizing the anti-gender agenda in education." Education Policy Analysis Archives, 32(60), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.32.8829 (also published in Portuguese: Um quadro analítico para teorizar a agenda antigênero na educação)

Moeller, K. (2024). “On Hauntings and Hierarchies: Bridging between Elite Universities and Communities.” Globalisation, Societies & Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.2283509

Moeller, K. (2023). “Girls as New Frontiers: Corporatized Development and the Politics of Investing in Girls.” In Switzer, Heather, Karishma Desai, and Emily Bent (eds), Girls in Global Development: Theoretical Contestations, Empirical Demands. Berghahn Press.

Moeller, K. (2021) “Nike’s Search for Third World Potential: The Tensions between Corporate Funding and Feminist Futures.” In Millicent Thayer and Ashwini Tambe (eds), Transnational Feminist Itineraries: Situating Theory and Activist Practices. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Moeller, K. (2020). “The Politics of Curricular Erasure: Debates on Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Brazilian ‘Common Core’ Curriculum.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 24(1), 18-38. (Citation count: 12)

Moeller, K. (2020). “Accounting for the Corporate: An Analytic Framework for Understanding Corporations in Education.” Educational Researcher. 49(4), 232-240. (Citation count: 36)

Tarlau, R. and K. Moeller. (2020). “O Consenso por Filantropia: Como Uma Fundação Privada Estabeleceu a BNCC no Brazil.” Currículo sem Fronteiras 20(2), 553-603. (Citation count: 92)

Tarlau, R. and K. Moeller. (2019). “Philanthropizing Consent: How a Private Foundation Pushed through National Learning Standards in Brazil.” Journal of Education Policy, 35(3), 337-366.

Moeller, K. (2016). “A Critical Feminist and Race Critique of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century,” Special Issue on Piketty’s Relevance for Education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(6), 810-822.

Moeller, K. (2014). “Searching for Adolescent Girls in Brazil: Corporate Development and the Transnational Politics of Poverty in the Girl Effect.” Feminist Studies, 40(3), 575-601.

Moeller, K. (2013) “Proving the Girl Effect: Corporate Knowledge Production and Educational Intervention.” International Journal of Educational Development, 33(6), 612-621.