Faculty Profiles

Khalid H. Arar, Ph.D. is a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy in the Department of Counseling, Leadership, Adult Education, and School Psychology at Texas State University. His international and comparative research scholarship is rooted at the nexus of social justice, equity, and diversity in educational leadership and policy, with a particular focus on refugees, migrants, and minoritized communities across the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Over the past two decades, Dr. Arar has built a distinguished global academic profile, publishing more than 20 scholarly books with leading academic publishers (e.g., Routledge, Emerald, Springer, Palgrave, Peter Lang), some of which have been translated into Turkish and Greek. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed chapters and articles in top-tier journals, including Review of Education, Educational Review, Cambridge Journal of Education, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Educational Policy, Journal of Educational Administration, Compare, and Higher Education Policy. His book School Leadership for Refugees (Routledge, 2020) was recognized as an Outstanding Academic Title. Dr. Arar serves as Editor-in-Chief of Leadership and Policy in Schools and holds editorial board memberships across numerous high-impact journals, including AERJ, EMAL, JEA, and HEP, among others. He has played a central role in shaping global scholarly discourse through editorial leadership, international collaborations, and contributions to major handbooks and edited volumes, including leading two Routledge book series that he founded.
Prior to Texas State University, Dr. Arar held several senior leadership roles in higher education (2012–2019), including President of Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education, Research Dean at the Center for Academic Studies, Chair of Graduate Programs, and Head of Educational Leadership and Administration Program. Earlier in his career, he served as a high school principal (2003–2012) and, as a certified administrative and organizational advisor, he provided consultancy for district-wide initiatives, to national and international educational and community-based organizations, leading programs for system-level improvement.
Professor Arar’s international engagement is further reflected in his role as an external examiner for doctoral dissertations across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Pakistan, and beyond. He has received several prestigious awards and recognitions for his scholarly contributions. He was named among Stanford University’s Top 2% Scientists in 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2025, he ranked 4th globally in leadership research by ScholarGPS among more than 50,000 scholars, based on productivity, impact, and quality over the preceding five years. He has also been invited as a keynote speaker and presenter at conferences and seminars worldwide, including in the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, and Malta. His work has been widely recognized through numerous prestigious awards and accolades, including the AERA Division A Excellence in Research Award (2023), the UCEA Racial and Social Justice Award (2024), and the AERA Leadership for Social Justice SIG Bridge People Award (2024). At Texas State University, he has received multiple Presidential Distinction Awards for Excellence in Scholarly Activity in the College of Education (2022–2025), and in 2025 he was awarded the Presidential Distinction Award for Scholarly Excellence. He was also named an International Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change (APCLC) at The Education University of Hong Kong (2025). His scholarship has further been recognized with the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Best Book Honorable Mention Award (2023) and he holds honorary professorships at Texas State University and the University of West Attica, Greece.