Luis Armando Gandin is a Professor of Sociology of Education in the School of Education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil and served, for the 2006/2007 academic year, as an invited Visiting Scholar at the School of Education and Human Services of Oakland University - Michigan. At the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Professor Gandin has been the chair (elected by his peers) of the Teacher Education Program for many years and at Oakland University, he is coordinating, with Thomas Pedroni, the Summer 2008 Oakland University Global Urban Education Exchange in Brazil. This 4-week program will give students the opportunity to earn Oakland University credits while experiencing firsthand the progressive model of urban educational reform represented by Porto Alegre's Citizen Schools.

Professor Gandin has a Master's degree in Sociology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and a Ph.D. in Educational Theory from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the editor of the Journal Currículo sem Fronteiras (Curriculum without Borders, http://www.curriculosemfronteiras.org), an open-access, peer-reviewed journal promoting academic analyses around issues of critical and emancipatory education. Professor Gandin has published several books which deal with critical pedagogy.

He has also published several book chapters, and scholarly articles in Brazil, Portugal, Australia, the US, and the UK. Professor Gandin has been researching and writing on progressive educational reform in Brazil, more particularly in the city of Porto Alegre, where the Citizen School Project of the Popular Administration has had a great impact on the lives of thousands of children living in extreme poverty. Professor Gandin's research shows how the Citizen School project and its democratic policies on curriculum, governance, and on the relation between communities and the schools has produced a viable progressive alternative to market-based reforms. Dr. Gandin has traveled extensively giving talks and working with teachers and activists of his native Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, the US, and the UK on issues of progressive education reforms, participatory planning in education, and critical pedagogy. Luis Armando Gandin research interests are in the areas of sociology of education, critical education and pedagogy, educational policy, curriculum theory, and progressive educational reforms. He is currently working (with Michael Apple and Wayne Au) on a major edited volume on Critical Education.