Michelle J. Bellino
University of Michigan School of Education, Assistant Professor
About Me
Michelle Bellino is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Education. Her research centers on the intersections between education and youth civic development, with particular attention to contexts impacted by armed conflict and forced displacement. Across diverse settings, she explores how experiences with violence, asylum, and peace and justice processes influence young people’s participation in schools and society, future aspirations, as well as educational access and inclusion. In her work, she traces youth experiences from schools to their homes and communities in order to understand how knowledge and attitudes toward historical (in)justice travel across public and private spaces, as well as between generations. She draws on ethnographic methods and youth participatory action research to ask how young people construct understandings of justice and injustice, while shaping an evolving sense of themselves as local and global civic actors.
im/migration and displacement, youth civic engagement, peace, conflict, and transitional justice
For more information:
Selected Publications & Projects
Bellino, M.J., & Kakuma Youth Research Group. (2018). Closing information gaps in Kakuma Refugee Camp: A youth participatory action research study. American Journal of Community Psychology 62, pp. 492-507.
Bellino, M.J. (2017). Youth in postwar Guatemala: Education and civic identity in transition. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Bellino, M.J. (2015). The risks we are willing to take: Youth civic development in “postwar” Guatemala. Voices in Education: The Blog of Harvard Education Publishing.