Zlata Godler was born in 1938 in Zagreb, Croatia. In 1959 she obtained a Diploma in Social Work from the University of Zagreb. Her further studies were in Pedagogy and Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb. She obtained a B.A. in 1965. For her M.A. degree, which she received in 1973, she studied at the Faculty of Education (Department of Educational Foundations) at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her M.A. thesis was ''The consequences of the reforms in Yugoslav Higher Education, 1960-1970''. She did her doctoral studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Department of History/Philosophy of Education). In 1981 she was awarded Ph.D. having defended her doctoral dissertation with the theme ''Croatia to Canada migration between the wars''.
From 1959 until 1965, while in Croatia, she was working as a social worker. In 1966 she immigrated to Canada. During her studies at OISE she was a research assistant in the Department of History/Philosophy of Education, and an affiliated researcher of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario.
In 1979 she returned to Croatia to take a post at the University Centre for Pedagogical Instruction and Research of the University of Zagreb. She continued working in the Department of Pedagogical Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb until her retirement in 1998.
Her research is mostly in comparative education, intercultural education, and higher and teacher education.
From 1996 until 2000 she was a member of the Executive Committee of the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE), and from 2000 until 2004 she was one of the two vice-presidents of CESE. At the CESE conference in Uppsala in 2010 she was elected an Honorary Member.
Some of her published works are:
- Doctors and the New Immigrants. Canadian Ethnic Studies, Vol. IX, No. 1, 1977, pp. 6-18.
- Komparativna analiza odgojno-obrazovnih procesa u multikulturalnim sredinama (Comparative analysis of educational processes in multicultural environments). Zagreb: Institut za pedagogijska istraživanja, Pedagogijske znanosti Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 1986.
- Interkulturalizam i interkulturalni odgoj i obrazovanje: razvojne faze i karakteristike u Kanadi i Španjolskoj – komparativna analiza (Interculturalism and intercultural education: developmental phases and characteristics in Canada and Spain – A comparative analysis). Istraživanje odgoja i obrazovanja, No. 1, 1991, pp. 59-70.
- Plurikulturalna realnost i obrazovanje za ljudska prava (Pluricultural reality and education for human rights). Theleme, Vol. 37, No. 34, 1991, pp. 217-225.
- 'High School Students' Intercultural Predispozitions: an Empirical Research' (with Domović, V.). In: Multicultural Reality and Perspectives in Croatia, Katunarić, Vjeran (ed.). Zagreb: Interkultura, 1997, pp. 145-200.
- 'Clear Needs, Uncertain Responses: Change in Croatia's Education System' (with Domović, V.) In: Education in a global society: a comparative perspective, Mazurek, Kas; Winzer, Margaret; Majorek, Czeslaw (eds.). Needham Heights, MA; USA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999, pp. 271-284.
- 'Dilemmas, uncertainties, and indecisions about the future of teacher education: the case of Croatia' (with Domović, V.) In: Identity, education and citizenship – Multiple interrelations, Jonas Sprogoe and Thyge Winther-Jensen (eds.). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006, pp. 323-338.
- 'Croatian Higher Education and the Implementation of the Bologna Process' (with Domović, V.) In: Changing universities in Europe and the ''Bologna Process'': a seven country study, Palomba, Donatella (ed.). Roma: ARACNE editrice S.r.l., 2008, pp. 101-124.