María Balarin Bonazzi
María Balarin is a Senior Researcher at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) in Peru.
Her research explores the political economy of education reform and educational justice in the Global South, with a particular focus on gender dynamics and socioeconomic exclusion. She has examined how state weakness shapes education reforms, the processes of weakly regulated school privatization and their effects on socioeconomic segregation, as well as the educational, labor market, and citizenship trajectories of marginalized young people. Her work has also addressed the educational inclusion of migrants and the role of education in advancing social justice.
María has contributed to the evaluation of education policies and programs, and has led studies and projects on gender inequality in academia and on the constraints facing social research in middle- and low-income countries.
She holds a PhD in Education Policy from the University of Bath (UK), an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies from the University of Essex (UK), and a BA in Philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Before joining GRADE, she was a faculty member in the Department of Education at the University of Bath.
