Minha Khan

I am a Sociologist of Education with a particular interest in issues of identity, inclusion, and equity. I study educational gatekeeping: how access to education is determined. My research has previously explored how schooling in a child’s non-native language can make learning inaccessible, how
household and gender norms complicate accessing higher education for female students, and the role of education in breaking the inheritance of despair in low-income families. My projects intersect education research, design, and policy. Most recently, I worked on a five-year project to develop a mother tongue-based multilingual education program for schools in Tharparkar, Pakistan. This led to the development of policies on the language of education within the country.

After graduating from Stanford University ('21), I worked at Noora Health as a Senior Social Impact Researcher and at The Citizens Foundation as a Research and Design Associate. These experiences made me realize the importance of evidence-based decision-making and its role in addressing social, and particularly educational, inequities. I was awarded the Oxford Pakistan Program Scholarship to pursue a graduate degree in Evidence-Based Social Interventions and Policy Evaluations at the University of Oxford ('23) where my ultimate goal is to utilize my training to support evidence-based reform in Pakistan's education sector.

At DSPI, I am working with the Parenting for Lifelong Health Initiative (Pakistan and Ukraine) while writing my dissertation on the relationship between education expenditure, privatization, and learning outcomes for primary-aged children.