madeleine kennedy-macfoy

madeleine kennedy-macfoy currently works at Education International (EI) the global federation of education unions, where she is responsible for developing and coordinating implementation of the organisation’s gender equality action plan, and for developing and providing expert advice on organisational policy on gender equality and intersectional perspectives. Prior to working at EI, madeleine was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Oslo (Norway), where she was also appointed Acting Director and worked on a big multi-partner bid for research funding from the Norwegian Research Council. madeleine became an associate editor of the European Journal of Women’s Studies in 2011, and co-editor in September 2020. As a postdoctoral researcher, madeleine was a member of EU funded research project FEMCI, which explored the relationship between the changing forms and practices of gendered citizenship in multicultural Europe and the demands and practices of contemporary women’s movements. The project focused on how citizenship is gendered and on how women, as ordinary citizens, and activists, have been involved in challenging inequalities and injustice across Europe. madeleine's research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council and focused on the role played by Black and minority women's organisations in Brussels, London, and Oslo. She investigated the types of organisational structures Black, migrant and minoritised women in the three cities developed since the 1970s; the types of claims such organisations make; the institutions they target to meet those claims; and the extent to which the claims made by the organisations are claims for (social, political, economic, ethnic/religious, intimate or bodily/sexual) citizenship. The findings of her research were published in peer-reviewed academic journals and edited anthologies. madeleine has eighteen years of programmatic and interdisciplinary academic experience working on women’s rights and gender equality issues in international settings. The focus of her work has ranged from women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan African countries to studying minority women’s organising in different European contexts, advancing women’s leadership and gender equality within the global education union movement, and coordinating teacher unions’ efforts to address school-related gender-based violence and improve girls’ access to quality education in sub-Saharan African countries.