Rowena Azada-Palacios

I am a philosopher of education who shuttles between the UK and the Philippines. I am interested broadly in the intersection between education and critical political thought. My book Postcolonial Education and National Identity was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2024. My current research project (until September 2025) explores the circulation of ideas and practices about education and knowledge production between the US metropole and the Philippine colony in the first three decades of the 20th century, and how these shaped the research university; I am undertaking this project as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, for the Reversing the Gaze project. 

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I am currently on research leave (teaching release) from my teaching role at the Ateneo de Manila University Philosophy Department, where I have taught for more than 20 years, although I am still the department's coordinator for graduate programmes and I continue to supervise MA theses and PhD dissertations. Over the years, I have also lectured at New York University London, London Metropolitan University, and University College London.

I am on the editorial board of the journals Ethics and Education (Taylor and Francis) and the IMPACT series of the Journal of Philosophy of Education (Oxford University Press), and I am an associate editor of the Brill series on philosophy of education.
 

My other research projects have been on education for reparation, climate justice education, and the academic citizenship of marginalized academics. I have also been involved in a number of philosophy and interdisciplinary research projects related to social justice in education, the concept of educational attunement, and critical social theory from a Philippine lens. 

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I am the Founding Chair of the Philippine Society of Education and Philosophy (PhilSEP) and a founding member of Women Doing Philosophy (in the Philippines). I was one of the founding producers of the podcast Conversations4Citizenship.

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I hold a PhD in Philosophy of Education from the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, an MA in Citizenship Education (with distinction) from the Institute of Education, University of London, and MA and AB (cum laude) degrees in philosophy from Ateneo de Manila University.