Her research explores questions about belonging, rights, citizenship, and education raised by globalization, transnational migration, and conflict. In addition to being published in multiple academic journals, Abu El-Haj has also authored Unsettled Belonging: Educating Palestinian American Youth after 9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and Elusive Justice: Wrestling with Difference and Educational Equity in Everyday Practice (Routledge, 2006). She was recognized by the American Educational Studies Association in 2016 as the recipient of the Critics Choice Award. Abu El-Haj has a BA in history from Swarthmore College, an MA in clinical and developmental psychology from Bryn Mawr College, and a PhD in the anthropology of education from the University of Pennsylvania.