Bell trained as a primary teacher at Frankston Teachers College (1960-1) and taught in a range of state schools in Victoria and NSW. After the birth of her children, Genevieve (1967) and Morgan (1969), she completed high school through night classes at Box Hill High School, Victoria (1970-1), her BA (Hons) in Anthropology at Monash University (1975), and a PhD from Australian National University (ANU) (1981).
