Elisabeth Lefebvre

Job Title

  • Associate Professor of Education
    Education, College of Arts and Sciences

Highlight

Dr. Elisabeth E. Lefebvre is an associate professor in the Department of Education at Bethel University. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Development Education with a minor in Sociocultural Studies in Education from the University of Minnesota, and an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Oregon. Before attending graduate school, she worked as an elementary school teacher in Louisiana, USA, and in Morocco. Lefebvre's interdisciplinary research examines the mutually constitutive and historical relationship between schooling and childhood, as well as the ways in which our ideas about schooling impact student and teacher experiences in the classroom.

Started at Bethel

2018

Education

  • Miami University - B.A. in History and Political Science, 2006
  • University of Oregon - M.A. in International Studies, 2012
  • University of Minnesota - Ph.D. in Comparative and International Development Education, 2016

Courses Taught

EDU 317: Educational Equity

EDU 372: Educational Psychology: Exceptionalities & Classroom Management

EDUC 850: Doctoral Research III

GES 160: Schooled: Global Perspectives on Education

Awards

Co-PI Sauer Foundation Grant, Recruiting & Retaining Candidates of Color in Teacher Education Programs at NExT Institutions

University of Minnesota Doctoral Research Fellowship

John and Grace Cogan Graduate Research Fellowship, Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota

New Scholars Travel Merit Award, Comparative and International Education Society

Frank Braun Fellowship, Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minesota

University of Minnesota Graduate Fellowship

Thurber Fellowship for Graduate Research in International Studies, University of Oregon

Publications

  • Lefebvre, E. E., & Chia, Yeow-Tong. (forthcoming). Historical and archival analysis. In M. A. M. Thomas, T. Jules, R. Shields, & M. Schweisfurth, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Research Methods in Comparative and International Education. Bloomsbury.
  • Thomas, M. A. M., & Lefebvre, E. E. (forthcoming). Using Bourdieu to analyse alternative teacher education. In G. Stahl, M. Mu, P. Ayling, & C. Brock, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Bourdieu in Educational Research. Bloomsbury.
  • Lefebvre, E. E., Pradhan, S., & Thomas, M. A. M. (2022). The discursive utility of the global, local, and national: Teach For All in Africa. Comparative Education Review66(4), 620-642.
  • Lefebvre, E. E., Crawford-Garrett, K., & Thomas, M. A. M. (2022). The progressive neoliberalism of Teach For America. In A. Sharma, M. Schmeichel, & B. Wurzburg (Eds.), Progressive Neoliberalism and Schooling. Routledge.
  • Lefebvre, E. E. (2021). Searching for the child in colonial Uganda’s educational archives. In D. Levinson, M. J. Maynes, F. Vavrus (Eds.), Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents: Approaches to Research in a Global Context. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Thomas, M. A. M., & Lefebvre, E. E. (2020). Teaching synchronous-service teachers: Traditional teacher education at a cross-roads. Teachers College Record.
  • Lefebvre, E. E., & Thomas, M. (2019). Alternative routes to teaching. In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Singapore: Springer Nature.
  • Lefebvre, E. E. (2018). Childhood and nation: Interdisciplinary entanglements. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.
  • Thomas, M. A. M., & Lefebvre, E. E. (2018). The dangers of relentless pursuit: Teaching, personal health, and the symbolic/real violence of Teach For America. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.
  • Lefebvre, E. E. & Thomas, M. A. M. (2017). "'Shit shows' or 'like-minded schools': Charter schools and the neoliberal logic of the Teach For America Movement." Journal of Education Policy, 32(3), 357-371
  • Sanderson, K., Ridge, N. Y., Kippels, S. M., & Lefebvre, E. (2016). Inclusion Not Exclusion: Comparative Educational Perspectives at the Heart of Sustainable Development in the Gulf States. FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, 3(2).
  • Lefebvre, E. E., Pekol, A., Krause, B. (2015). "I would like to live a better life": How young mothers experience entrepreneurship education. Reconsidering Development, 3(2).
  • Thomas, M. A. M., Thomas, C. M., & Lefebvre, E. E. (2014). Dissecting the teacher monolith: Experiences of beginning basic school teachers in Zambia. International Journal of Educational Development, 38, 37-46.
  • Lefebvre, E. E. (2012). Cultural, historic, and linguistic preservation. In J. Ciment & C. Bates (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Global Social Issues. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
  • Lefebvre, E.E. (2011). Teaching, learning and the construction of self: Education, language and culture in Morocco. Papers, Essays, and Reviews, 3(2), 295-306.

Professional Organizations, Committees, and Boards

Minnesota Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

Comparative and International Education Society (Member, Teaching Comparative & International Education Co-Chair)

Society for the History of Childhood and Youth (Member)

Critical Childhoods & Youth Studies Collective

Hobbies and Interests

Elisabeth loves adventuring with her family, trying new recipes, and reading good books (which she collects with abandon).

Areas of expertise

Comparative and International Education; Education Policy; Alternative Teacher Licensure; Neoliberal Educational Reform; Cross-Cultural Pedagogy and Practice; Sociocultural Studies of Education; History & Philosophy of Education; Childhood & Youth Studies; Primary Education; Qualitative Research Methods; Longitudinal Research