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Kelsey A. Dalrymple is Teaching Faculty in the Educational Policy Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is also an educational anthropologist with a professional background in education and humanitarian response, focusing mostly on refugee education. Her research is rooted in the fields of comparative and international education; the anthropologies of education, childhood, and development; and forced migration studies. She primarily utilizes qualitative, ethnographic, and critical research methodologies to explore processes of knowledge production, humanitarian governance, systemic inequities, and pedagogies like social emotional learning with marginalized, refugee, and crisis-affected communities. She is currently teaching the courses Ed Pol 220: Human Rights and Education and Ed Pol 237: Wealth, Poverty, & Inequality – Transitional Perspectives on Policy & Practice in Education.
Education
- PhD Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2024
- MA Education and Human Development, The George Washington University, 2014
- BA Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009
Select Publications
- Dalrymple, K.A. (2026). Problematizing Child-Led Participatory Research in Refugee Contexts: A Photovoice Study with Refugee and Host-Community Children in Uganda. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 25. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069261416778.
- Shah, R. & Dalrymple, K.A. (2025). The need for a racial reckoning in the education in emergencies community: a focus on social and emotional learning. Comparative Education Review, 69(3). https://doi.org/10.1086/736500.
- Dalrymple, K.A. & Irankunda, E. (2024). Geometries of Control: Co-producing Knowledge in a Refugee Context. Human Organization, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2024.2435617.
- Dalrymple, K. A. (2024). Erasing Our Humanity: Crisis, Social Emotional Learning, and Generational Fractures in the Nduta Refugee Camp. Genealogy, 8(3), 105. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy803010.
- Dalrymple, K. A. (2024). Sustaining the Unsustainable? Social Emotional Learning in Displacement and Crisis Contexts. Salzburg Global Seminar Online Publication/Abstract.
- Dalrymple, K. A., & Philips, J. M. (2024). The Complicated Rise of Social Emotional Learning in the United States: Implications for Contemporary Policy and Practice. Harvard Educational Review, 94(3), 337-361. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-94.3.337.
- Dalrymple, K. A. (2023). Critically Examining Social Emotional Learning with Refugees in East Africa: Tensions, Challenges, and Complex Dynamics. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 25(2), 8-35. Online Publication/Abstract.
- Dalrymple, K. A. (2022). Book Review: Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine by Catherine Besteman. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 8(1), 285-287. https://doi.org/10.33682/0et2-uvq2.
- Dalrymple, K. A. (2019). Mindful Learning: Early Childhood Care and Development for Refugee Children in Tanzania. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 5(1), 133-55. https://doi.org/10.33682/37cx-3017.
Select Presentations
- (2026). Reciprocity: Idyllic Myth vs. Anthropological Imperative Part 2, Society for Applied Anthropology, Albuquerque, NM USA.
- (2026). Beyond the Binary of Healing and Harm: Reimagining Social and Emotional Learning in Crisis Contexts, Presidential Invited Symposium, Comparative and International Education Society Conference, San Francisco, CA USA.
- (2026). Reckoning with Racial Erasure: Reimagining Social and Emotional Learning in the Education in Emergencies Sector, Comparative and International Education Society Conference, San Francisco, CA USA.
- (2026). Disrupting the “Truths” We Carry: A Facilitated Dialogue on Power, Knowledge, and Praxis in Research with Refugee, Migrant, and Queer Communities, Ethnography in Education Research Forum, Philadelphia, PA USA.
- (2025). The Analytical Potential of Hauntology to Examine Learning in Crisis, American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA .USA
- (2025). Problematizing Collaborative Knowledge Production in a Refugee Context, United Kingdom Forum for International Education and Training Conference, Oxford, UK.
- (2025). Reciprocity: Idyllic Myth vs. Anthropological Imperative, Society for Applied Anthropology, Portland, OR USA.
- (2025). Digitized SEL in Crisis Contexts: Bridging or Widening the Digital Divide? Comparative and International Education Society Conference, Chicago, IL USA.
- (2025). Erasing Our Humanity: The Convergence of Social Emotional Learning and Crisis in the Nduta Refugee Camp, Ethnography in Education Research Forum, Philadelphia, PA USA.
- (2024). Conflict-Prevention through Social Emotional Learning? Perspectives from Burundian Refugees in Tanzania, African Studies Association, Chicago, IL USA.
- (2024). Voices quiet, bodies still: Anthropological applications to the co-construction of social and emotional learning models, American Anthropological Association, Tampa, FL USA.
- (2024). Re-imagining Education in Emergencies: A Critical, Constructive Dialogue, British Association for International & Comparative Education, Brighton, UK.
Select Awards and Honors
- Research Fellowship, Southern Education Foundation, 2025
- Academic Staff Professional Development Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2024
- Concha Delgado Gaitán Presidential Fellowship, Council on Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association, 2024
- Peter Kong-ming New Award, Society for Applied Anthropology, 2024
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education, 2023
- Salzburg Global Fellowship: Whole Child Development for Displaced Learners Network, Salzburg Global Seminar, (2021-2023)
- Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), U.S. Department of State, 2021
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), U.S. Department of Education, (2020 & 2021)