Faculty Accomplishments

Promoting equality in education

Students from ethnic minority backgrounds make up 40 percent of American classrooms, according to census data. Motoko Akiba works with graduate students to research how teachers can learn to incorporate differences among cultures into effective teaching practices. Her endowed position supports her work on issues of educational equity.

Motoko Akiba knows all about cultural differences. As an undergraduate exchange student from Japan to the University of Pennsylvania, she was surprised how little cultural sharing took place. “Everyone just hung out with their own group. It was not difficult to get to know other people, but you had to make the effort,” she says.

One of the goals of her research is to prepare teachers to effectively incorporate cultural diversity into the classroom.

“Teachers should be aware of their own culture and understand how their beliefs and behaviors are influenced by their experiences,” Akiba says. “They also need to critically assess if every student is provided equal learning opportunities and exposed to culturally diverse learning experiences at school. This is especially challenging for pre-service teachers who are taught a single best method of instruction.”

Another component of her research looks at issues of school safety, discipline and educational equity. She discovered, for example, that poor students are more likely than others to be suspended or expelled for the same behaviors.

“Right now there is no longitudinal data to show how discipline policies and practices affect school safety,” Akiba says. “We have to question what we want to accomplish. Are we creating a large number of delinquents, even future criminals in our attempt to increase school safety? Is there a better way to discipline? Can we make society at large safer by trying to understand behaviors and providing more options for disciplining?”

Akiba’s endowed professorship, the Isabel Lyda Endowed Professorship, provides $11,000 over two years. She also applied for and received three grants to pay for research assistants. “The most important thing,” Akiba says, “is that the department supports my research and professional development. There is nice collegiality here.”