Christiana K. Kelly
Christiana K. Kelly
Interdisciplinary Education, Anthropology, & African American Studies
Email: ckallonkelly@g.ucla.edu
Biography
Christiana Kallon Kelly is an interdisciplinary education and development scholar whose research and teaching interests include anthropological studies of education and youth, critical gender and development studies, and African Studies and African Diaspora Studies. Her first book project tentatively titled Some Say I’m Too Small: The Politics of Schooling and Inclusion for Young Women in Sierra Leone, ethnography examines how secondary schoolgirls in postwar Sierra Leone navigate the everyday politics of their inclusion and exclusion in schools and society in the wake of several high profile national education and gender reforms. Building on this work, her newest line of research collects archival data and oral histories from elite Sierra Leonean women in Africa and the diaspora who attended The Annie Walsh Memorial School for Girls established in Freetown in 1849 as the first secondary school for girls in West Africa. Christiana was born in Sierra Leone and raised in Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, and Bangladesh before immigrating to the United States
Education
- PhD., University of Pennsylvania, 2023.
- MS.Ed., University of Pennsylvania, 2016.
- B.A., College of William & Mary, 2011.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Strong, K. & C. Kallon Kelly. (2022). Youth leadership for development: contradictions of Africa’s growing leadership pipeline. Journal of Modern African Studies. 60(2), 217-238.
- Kallon Kelly, C. (2022). Secondary Education Reforms and Partisan Politics in Sierra Leone: Implications for Students and Teachers. Africa Policy Journal.
Book Chapters
- Strong, K., R. Odendaal & C. Kallon Kelly. (2023). Education for Subordination: Youth and the Afterlives of Coloniality and Racialization in Africa. In J. Scott & M. Bajaj (Eds.), World Handbook on Education: Racialization and Educational Inequality in Global Perspective (1st ed., Chapter 6). Routledge.
Awards, Honors, & Fellowships
- UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2023-2025
- Harvard Kennedy School Women and Public Policy Program Fellowship, 2021-2022
- University of Oslo & Peace Research Institute of Oslo Scholarship, 2018
- American Association of University Women International Fellowship, 2015-2016
- Philanthropic Education Organization International Peace Scholarship, 2015-2016
