Pempho Chinkondenji
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Assistant Professor, Education, Health & Behavior
- Gender and power in education, Participatory visual methodologies, Forced displacement and refugee education, In-school pregnancy and student motherhood, (Inter)national higher education, Ubuntu, African feminism(s)
Contact Info
- Email: pempho.chinkondenji@UND.edu
- Office: 701.777.4337
Office Address
Education Room 322
231 Centennial Drive Stop 7189
Grand Forks, ND 58202-7189
Curriculum Vitae
Biography
Dr. Pempho Chinkondenji is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Research in the Department of Education, Health, and Behavior Studies at the University of North Dakota. She earned her Ph.D. in International Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Chinkondenji is a qualitative research methodologist who utilizes participatory visual methodologies, including photovoice and other forms of qualitative inquiry, to conduct educational research. She is also a 2025 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and is working on a research project centering on the experiences of refugee pregnant learners and student mothers in the context of encampment.
As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Chinkondenji's research focuses on addressing structural inequalities within educational policies and practices, with a specific emphasis on African and African diaspora populations. Her primary research interests lie at the intersections of education, gender justice, girls' education, in-school pregnancy/student motherhood, global migration, and forced displacement. Her scholarship draws from African feminisms, Ubuntu, and post/de-colonial thought to interrogate gender and power dynamics in education and international development spaces.
She is currently working on a book project titled Drop-out, Push-out, or Walk-out?: Re/imagining Education for Young Mothers and Pregnant Adolescents that examines schooling post-pregnancy in international contexts.
EFR 510 Participatory Qualitative Research Methods (Graduate)
EFR 509 Introduction to Applied Educational Research (Graduate)
EFR 522 Mixed Methods Research (Graduate)
EFR 525 International and Comparative Education (Graduate)
EFR 584 Internship in Educational Research (Graduate)
Comparative and international education
Qualitative research methods
Participatory visual methodologies
Photovoice and photo elicitation
In-school pregnancy and student motherhood
Forced displacement and refugee education
Ubuntu and African Feminisms
(Inter)national higher education
Gender and power in education
Publications
Chamdimba, E., & Chinkondenji, P. (2025). Humanizing methodologies in a digital world: A critical awareness of Ubuntu-informed approaches in participatory visual research in Malawi. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086251348261
Chinkondenji, P. (2025). ‘Having a child is not a barrier:’ an African-feminist perspective in (un)making schooling for pregnant learners and re-integration of student mothers. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2025.2452472
Chinkondenji, P. & Changamire, N. (2025). Afrocentric student agency, negotiating “third space,” and higher education: A photovoice study of emergency remote learning during COVID-19 in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Comparative Education Review, 69(2). https://doi.org/10.1086/735703
Chinkondenji, P., & Chinkondenji, A. (2024). Partial Stories: Maternal Death from Six Angles: By Claire L. Wendland Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2022, 384 pp., $35 (Paperback), ISBN 9780226816883 (paperback). The Journal of Development Studies, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2024.2444016
Carpenter, A. J., Feraud-King, T., Lewis, T., Stephens-Peace, K. J., Chinkondenji, P., Stanislaus, E., & George Mwangi, C. (2024). Rage In (and Out) the Cage: Black Students’ Negotiation of Safety. Journal of Black Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347241233772.
Carpenter, A.J., Stephens-Peace, K.J., Feraud-King, P., Lewis, T., Chinkondenji, P., Ohiri, K., & Mwangi, C.G. (2022). Impact that Transcends Proximity: Black College Students Traversing Multiple Pandemics. Journal of Negro Education 91(3), 366-380. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/901993.
Chinkondenji, P. (2022). Schoolgirl pregnancy, dropout or pushout?: an Ubuntucentric re-construction of the education for student mothers in Malawi, Gender and Education, 34(6), 738-753, https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2022.2061922
George Mwangi, C. A., Chen, S. J. & Chinkondenji, P. (2021). Exploring geopolitics in U.S. campus internationalization plans. In Lee, J.J. (Ed), US Power in International Higher Education. New Brunswick, NY: Rutgers University Press. https://doi.org/10.36019/9781978820814
Mosselson, J. and Chinkondenji, P. (2020), "Education, Schooling, and Migration", Wiseman, A.W. (Ed.) Annual Review of Comparative and International Education 2019 (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 39), Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 323-334. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-367920200000039026
Schweik, C. M., Meyer, C., Chinkondenji, P., Smith, J., & Mchenga, P. (2020). World librarians: A socio-technical system providing library search services to offline schools and libraries in Malawi. World Development Perspectives, 20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2020.100234
Chinkondenji, P. (2020). Sex for Grades: Undercover in West African Universities produced by Africa Eye. Comparative Education Review, 64(2), 331–333. https://doi.org/10.1086/708306
Select Presentations
Chinkondenji, P. & Kalaba, R. (2025, March). “Digital Ubuntu”: Engaging gender justice, research and technology through an African Indigenous perspective. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Chicago, IL.
Chamdimba, E. & Chinkondenji, P. (2025, March). Participatory visual methodologies in a digital world: A critical awareness of Ubuntucentric approaches in educational research in Malawi. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Chicago, IL.
de Silva, R. & Chinkondenji, P. (2025, March), Re/imagining transformative storytelling by women in a digital era: Traversing multiple spaces in Sri Lanka and Malawi. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Chicago, IL.
Hailu, M. F., Chinkondenji, P., Ibrahim, M., Chhetri, N. & Judson, E. (2024). Collective Dreaming: Black Girl Refugees from Burundi and Their Aspirations for STEM College Education. Association for the Study of Higher Education, Minneapolis, MN.
Mitic, R. R., Chinkondenji, P., Khatun, R., Mangle, K. M., Davis, L. A. & Wolniak, G. (2024). Understanding Vocational Identity and Career Choice in Helping Professions Amid Adversity: A Mixed Methods Study. Association for the Study of Higher Education, Minneapolis, MN.
de Silva, R. & Chinkondenji, P. (2024). Re/imagining Digital Storytelling in Transnational and Multi-cultural contexts: North Dakota, Hawai‘i, Sri Lanka, and Malawi. UND Multicultural Conference for Belonging and Inclusion, Grand Forks, ND.
Chinkondenji, P., Kufeyani, S., Kaunda L. & Matondo, F. (2024). 10 Years of African Girlhood Rooted in Participatory Social Transformation: (Auto)ethnographies of the Everyday in Rural Malawi. Girlhood Studies Collective (GSC) Symposium. Hosted by GSC in collaboration with the Department of Childhood Studies & the Gender Studies Program at Rutgers University, Camden. (Virtual)
Chinkondenji, P. (2024). Dismantling Echoes of the Colonial Mindset in Schooling Post-Pregnancy: A Photovoice Study with Parent/Mothering Students. American Educational Research Association (AERA). Philadelphia, PA: April 11-14, 2024.
Chinkondenji, P. (2024). Challenging the status quo of schooling post-pregnancy: Participatory visual methodologies as a form of resistance against violence towards girls’ education. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). Miami, FL: March 10-14, 2024.
Chinkondenji, P. (2023). (Re)thinking in-school pregnancy and student motherhood in Southern Africa: An ubuntucentric response to education for all women and girls. Research paper presented at the 2023 FAWE Triennial International Girls’ Conference. Nairobi, Kenya: November 21-22, 2023 (Virtual).
Chinkondenji, P. & Changamire, N. (2023). Student agency and negotiating “third space” among female collegians during COVID-19: A decolonial Afro-Feminist analysis of higher education in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Research paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Minneapolis, MN: November 15-18, 2023.
Carpenter, A., Benson, J., Lewis, T., Pemberton, B., Feraud-King, P. T., Chinkondenji, P. & Henry, D. (2023). Black Safety and Joy: Visualization of Resistance and Resilience for Black Collegians. Research paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Minneapolis, MN: November 15-18, 2023.
Chinkondenji, P. (2023). Schooling post-pregnancy and counter-storying: Utilizing photovoice to co-create a support framework for school re-entry in Malawi. Research paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society. Washington, DC: February 18-22, 2023.
Chinkondenji, P. (2022). (Un)making schooling for pregnant learners and re-integration of student mothers: The formation and utility of Critical Afro-Feminist Education (CAFE). Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Illuminating the Power of Idea/lism. Minneapolis, Minnesota: April 18 - 22, 2022.
Changamire, N. & Chinkondenji, P. (2022). Negotiating “third space” during COVID-19: A decolonial Afrikan feminist analysis of higher education female students’ experiences in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Comparative and International Education Society Theme: Illuminating the Power of Idea/lism. Minneapolis, Minnesota: April 18 - 22, 2022.
Chinkondenji, P. (2022). The Politics of Teen Pregnancy and Schooling: A Decolonial Analysis of Readmission in Malawi and Zambia. International Conference on Gender Studies in Africa. Theme: Africa and Gender Studies: Celebrating 30 Years of Transformation & Reimagining the Future. Kampala, Uganda. February 23, 2022 – February 25, 2022.
Banda, L. C. & Chinkondenji, P. (2021). Philosophical Reflections on Knowledge Production from African Graduate Students in the Global North: An Exemplar of the Ubuntu Philosophy. Decolonised Futures Conference 2021: St. Mary's University Twickenham, London, UK. May 27 – May 28, 2021.
Chinkondenji, P. (2021). Ubuntucentric approaches to in-school pregnancy: Addressing the conflict of pregnancy, policy, and culture. Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts. 2021 Virtual Conference: April 25 – May 2, 2021.
Changamire, N. & Chinkondenji, P. (2021). Emergency remote learning and women in higher education: An analysis of Zimbabwe and Malawi. Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts. 2021 Virtual Conference: April 25 – May 2, 2021.
Chinkondenji, P., Oniyangi, S. & Mottey, B. E. (2021). Reconceptualizing girls’ education: A critical discourse analysis of national response plans to COVID-19 and education. Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Social Responsibility within Changing Contexts. 2021 Virtual Conference: April 25 – May 2, 2021.
Changamire, N. & Chinkondenji, P. (2020). Things Fall Apart and Nervous Conditions: Interrogating gendered (re)presentations in pre and ‘post’colonial Africa. University Council for Educational Administration. Theme: Re/Building Home: Coloniality, Belonging, and Educational Leadership. 2020 Virtual Conference: November 9 – 20, 2020.
Chinkondenji, P. (2020). Schooling, mothering, and re-admission: The restraining and driving forces of returning to school. Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Education Beyond the Human. Miami, Florida. March 22-26, 2020. (Affected by COVID-19 changes)
Changamire, N. & Chinkondenji, P. (2020). When things fall apart and nervous conditions persist:Representation of African women in pre and post-colonial folklore and development writings. Comparative and International Education Society. Theme: Education Beyond the Human. Miami, Florida. March 22-26, 2020. (Affected by COVID-19 changes)
Chinkondenji, P., Sadati, S.M.H., Bousek, J., Kleinman, L., Abdi, N. (2019). Technology, art and curriculum: Teaching and learning about sexual violence in an innovative educational platform. American Educational Research Association Conference. Toronto, ON: April 5-9, 2019.
George Mwangi, C. A., Chen, S. & Chinkondenji, P. (2019). Speaking truth to power: Exploring geopolitics in U.S. campus internationalization plans. American Educational Research Association Conference. Toronto, ON: April 5-9, 2019.
2025 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship ($70,000), National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation
2024 Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on People of African Descent, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
2024 Gail P. Kelly Award for Outstanding Dissertation, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
Ph.D. in International Education, 2023
Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration
College of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Graduate Certificate in Feminist Studies, 2022
Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
College of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural and International Education, 2017
School of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Policy
College of Education and Human Development, Bowling Green State University
Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication, 2013
African Bible College
Lilongwe, Malawi