Carolyn J. (Carol) Benson, is Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Comparative Education from University of California Los Angeles in 1994. She started her career as an elementary school teacher. From 1998 to 2011, Dr. Benson was based at Stockholm University, first at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism and later at the Centre for University Teaching and Learning, meanwhile expanding her research and consulting in languages and literacies in the Southeast Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Africa regions. Her current work focuses on educational language policy and practice, gender and language, and multilingual curriculum development. She has a large number of publications including the 2013 volume co-edited with Kimmo Kosonen, Language Issues in Comparative Education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (Sense Publishers).