Current Initiatives and Research

Departamental & Faculty:

Department of Education Policy Studies (EDPS)

Dr. P. Bai Akridge (Visiting Research Scholar, International Center for Transcultural Education) serves as director of the Global Diversity Leadership Institute, which oversees the Prince George's County-funded International Ambassadors Study Abroad Scholarship Program at the University of Maryland; this program provides financial support to study abroad for graduates of Prince George's County Public High Schools with demonstrated need. Dr. Akridge has been engaged in building a relationship between the College of Education and higher education institutions in Liberia, West Africa. The State of Maryland has a Sister State relationship with Liberia and Bai serves on the program's Executive Committee and as Co-Chair of its Education Sub-Committee. Since 2001 Bai has served as President of WorldWise Services, Inc., a consultancy focusing on program development and strategic planning in international education, development and policy. Clients include the U.S. State Department, American Council on Education, U.S. Agency for International Development, Inter-American Development Bank, Afro-Cuban Research Institute/Mississippi Consortium for International Development, United Negro College Fund, the School Districts of Philadelphia and Prince George's County. Prior to WorldWise, during a 17-year career Bai held several management positions with the IBM Corporation as a lobbyist in Washington, marketing planner for the higher education segment, and manager f corporate philanthropy in the Asia-Pacific region, based in Tokyo. 

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Dr. Barbara Finkelstein (Professor, Socio-Cultural Foundations of Education and Director of the International Center for Transcultural Education) is a cultural historian who compares historical and cultural dimensions of diversity policy and practice in Japan, the United States, and more recently in Mexico, Singapore, and China. Her work centers around issues of diversity and community, tradition and change, and intersections of the global and local in constructions of childhood, youth, teacher practice and curriculum policies. Publications include such works as Educating  Strangers: A Comparison of Cultural Education Policies in Japan and the United States; Transcending Stereotypes: Discovering Japanese Culture and Education; and Hidden Messages: Instructional Materials for Cultural Teaching and Learning. She has done extensive oral historical field work centered  minority group experience with literacy and school reform in Japan, the United States and in Mexico, linked Japanese and Education Civil rights Advocates/teachers in comparative explorations of the meaning of diversity and lectured extensively on U.S. perspectives on transcultural education policies and practices.  Dr. Finkelstein has been awarded the Japanese “Imperial Order of the Rising Sun” (Gold Rays with Rosette) and the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Dr. Steven Selden (Professor, Education Policy Studies) traveled to China in December 2008 to pursue joint initiatives with Beijing Normal University including study abroad programs, targeted Fulbright exchanges, and an elementary school-to-school friendship exchange program with nearby Paint Branch Elementary School. Dr. Selden also discussed joint research with Chinese faculty on each respective country’s representations as presented in the Chinese and the U.S. school curriculum as well as collaborative research related to closing the achievement gap in U.S. and Chinese schools. Click here to read more about Dr. Selden's visit to China.

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