Yoshikawa Named Academic Dean

Dean Kathleen McCartney has announced that Professor Hiro Yoshikawa will serve as the next academic dean at HGSE.

“I'm honored to be appointed academic dean, and look forward to working with the dean and the school. I look forward to working on a broad set of issues related to the school's future direction and leadership in the field of education,” Yosikawa said. “I'm committed to helping the dean strengthen the ability of the school to produce leaders in educational practice, policy and research in an increasingly diverse nation and world. It’s both a sobering and exciting time to be working on these issues -- inequalities continue to divide our nation and many others, while the potential for innovations in educational practice, policy and research to address these inequalities has never been greater.”

Yoshikawa will begin working as academic dean on July 1.

“Hiro Yoshikawa was my first faculty appointment as dean — I am a great admirer of his scholarship. His groundbreaking research on the effect of public policies on children in the U.S. and abroad is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of child development and effective interventions,” said McCartney. “Hiro’s course is a magnet for students interested in studying culture, poverty, and educational policy, and he has demonstrated outstanding leadership as chair of the Dean’s Advisory Committee in Equity and Diversity (DACED) committee. I know he will bring good judgment and tremendous community-building skills to this important role.”

Yoshikawa joined the HGSE faculty in 2006. He is a developmental and community psychologist, who studies the development of young children in immigrant families and the effects of public policies on children's development. His most recent book, Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented Parents and Their Children, was published this spring by Russell Sage. “It is the first study to examine how parents’ documentation status affects their children. The rich ethnographic and longitudinal data he presents have important implications for practice and public policy for our nation’s immigrant families,” McCartney commented.

Other research projects by Yoshikawa include how public policies, parental employment, and transnational contexts influence very young children's development in Chinese, Mexican, Dominican, and African American families. He is also conducting a project on the development of young children and adolescents in Nanjing, China, with Associate Professor Vanessa Fong; New York University Professor Niobe Way, Ed.D.’94; and Xinyin Chen, professor at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Additionally, Yoshikawa is evaluating efforts to improve the quality of preschool education in Boston (with Ed.D. candidate Christina Weiland, Ed.M.’08, using regression discontinuity methods) and in Santiago, Chile (with Professor Catherine Snow, using cluster-randomized methods). He is conducting a meta-analysis of programs and policies for children from the prenatal period to age five with Greg Duncan, professor at the University of California – Irvine; Katherine Magnuson, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s School of Social Work; and the Center on the Developing Child’s Holly Schindler.

He is currently a member of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academy of Sciences. He regularly advises government agencies, foundations, and educational and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and abroad.

Yoshikawa received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University, an M.A. in psychology from NYU, an M.M. in piano performance from The Julliard School, and a bachelor’s in English Literature from Yale University.