Professor Ali Ahmed Abdi (PhD McGill University) has degrees in Sociology, Political Science
(Public Policy concentration) and International Development Education. He is a Professor of
Social Development Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver campus,
Canada. Prior to joining UBC, he was a professor of international development education at the
University of Alberta, where he was also the Founding Co-director of the Centre for Global
Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER).
Dr. Abdi is the former President of the Comparative and International Education Society of
Canada (CIESC), and is the winner of the David N. Wilson Distinguished Service Award from
CIESC. Currently, he serves on the UNESCO Chair Advisory Board in Global Citizenship
Education at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also a National Advisory
Committee Member for the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship, and
Transformative Education at the University of Quebec. He has conducted funded research on
education and human development in Canada, Somalia, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and
Zambia. He is the Founding Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, and Co-
founding Editor of Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry. The contents of these two academic
journals are freely available to all who can access them electronically.
Presently, he is serving on the editorial/review boards of such academic journals as International Journal of Higher Education Teaching and Learning; Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education; Curriculum Inquiry; Ivorian Journal of Comparative Studies; Malta Review of Educational
Research; and Postcolonial Directions in Education. His academic publications include, as
author/co-author/editor/co-editor, over 20 books including Social justice education in Canada
(2023); Palgrave handbook on critical theories of Education (2022); Educating for democratic consciousness (2013); Educating for human rights and global citizenship (2008); and African
education and globalization (2006).