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Teresa A. Wasonga

Professor, Educational Administration, Northern Illinois University

Teresa A. Wasonga is a Fulbright scholar and 2016 NIU Presidential Engagement Professor. She is also the recipient of 2017 MU College of Education Alumni Outstanding Professional Achievement Award. She is co-founder of an all-girls boarding secondary school in her native country Kenya. The school educates indigent girls who would otherwise not access secondary education.

Research Interests
School leadership with specific focus on democratic leadership, school improvement, and social justice
Institutional factors that determine success and/or failure in secondary schools in Kenya
Improvement science (IS) within networked improvement communities (NICs)
Education
Ed.D – University of Missouri, Columbia
M.Ed – Kenyatta University, Kenya
B.Ed – University of Nairobi, Kenya
Recent Publications
Pierce, J. & Wasonga, T. A. (2016). Good enough for the richest and open to the poorest. Sango Publishing
Woestman, D. S., Wasonga, T. A. (2015). Destructive leadership behaviors and work place attitudes in schools. National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1-17.
Teresa A. Fisher , Teresa A. Wasonga , Grace Wambu (2015), Utilizing Student Voices to Enhance Academic Resilience in Kenya, in Christa Boske , Azadeh F. Osanloo (ed.) Living the Work: Promoting Social Justice and Equity Work in Schools around the World (Advances in Educational Administration, Volume 23) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.283 - 295
Wasonga, T. A. (2014). Social control and democratic community in schools. Journal of School Leadership, 24(6), 115-1176.
Wasonga, T. A. (2014). From perdition to performance. In C. Day and D. Gurr (Eds.). Leading schools successfully: Stories from the field (44-58). London, UK: Routledge.
Wasonga, T. A. (2013). Towards understanding ambivalence in educational policy in Kenya. Journal of East African Studies, 7(1), 21-39.
Wasonga, T. A. (2012). Perspectives on K-12 learning and teacher preparation in East Africa. In O. N. Ukpokodu and P. Ukpokodu (Eds.), Contemporary voices from the margin: African educators on African and American education (pp. 129-148). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc.
Wasonga, T. A. (2012). The silent minority: Invisible bridges among African immigrants in America. In C. Boske (Ed.), Educational leadership: Building bridges among ideas, schools, and nations (pp. 141-158). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc.
Wasonga, T. A., Mwita, B. M. (2012). Mitigating the impact of educational policies in rural Kenya. In C. Boske and S. Diem (Eds.), Global leadership for social Justice: Taking it from the field to practice (Vol. 14, pp. 3-20). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group publishing Limited.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate Professor, Educational Administration, Northern Illinois University