Tina Besley is Visiting Professor in School of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing. From 2018-2024, she was Distinguished Professor, Beijing Normal University. Prior positions include: Professor and Associate Dean International, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, New Zealand; Research Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Full Professor, California State University, San Bernardino.
Tina began her academic career at the University of Glasgow in late 2000. She spent 16 years as a secondary school teacher, Head of Guidance and Counsellor in New Zealand. She is the Past President of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia, and founding president of the Association for Visual Pedagogies, and honoured as a Fellow of both. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK.
Tina uses the later work of Michel Foucault on subjectivity, free speech, governmentality. In global studies in education, she explores policy, identities and cultures and interculturalism. Tina works closely with Prof. Michael A. Peters and with a wide international network of scholars in many journal articles and books, publishing over 30 books and monographs and numerous journal articles. She has been on the editorial board of several journals including deputy editor of Educational Philosophy and Theory; associate editor of the Beijing International Review of Education, founding editor of PESA Agora; founding co-editor E-Learning & Digital Media and of Knowledge Cultures.