Emily Reich (she/her) is a third-year doctoral student in the Policy, Politics, and Leadership cluster at UC Berkeley's School of Education. Her research examines how bureaucracy and educational policy unfold on the ground for marginalized and minoritized students and the school systems and staff who serve them.
Prior to Berkeley, Emily taught Special Education in California and Israel. She holds a BS in Special Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Emily's dissertation investigates the replacement of the Palestinian National Authority curriculum with Israeli curriculum in East Jerusalem, exploring how Palestinian students and educators navigate this policy shift. She also studies the curriculum drafting and approval process for ethnic studies in California, examining public comment and civic engagement around ethnic studies curriculum. She employs qualitative methods to understand how education policies unfold in practice.
Emily is a BELS (Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies) scholar. She is a fluent Hebrew speaker and student of colloquial Arabic.
Specializations and Interests
Educational Systems in Divided Societies, Curriculum Politics and Policy, Qualitative Research Methods, Bureaucracy in Education
