Dr. Judith Torney-Purta (EDHD) has been named the 2009 recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology. This award recognizes her lifetime contributions to developing civic knowledge and democratic attitudes around the world, promoting international collaborative efforts in research and infusing her teaching with an international perspective. Dr. Torney-Purta has been a member of APA for more than 40 years.
Dr. Torney-Purta believes she received this award based largely on the IEA Civic Education Studies she coordinated in the 1970s and 1990s which has recently generated award winning publications of secondary analysis. Her contributions also include the internationalization of the psychology curriculum in the U.S., organizing a workshop for psychologists from low income countries, and evaluations of the ICONS computer-assisted international simulation. She has worked with the Organization of American States and provided methodological contributions to IEA studies such as TIMSS.
She has received several awards for her research, including APA’s Decade of Behavior Award for Research Relating to Democracy in 2005, the Nevitt Sanford Prize of the International Society of Political Psychology in 2001 and the University of Maryland’s International Landmark Research Award in 2005.
Torney-Purta is the author or editor of six books reporting research on political knowledge and attitudes. The first was “The Development of Political Attitudes in Children,” (Aldine Transaction, 1967), and one of the most recent was “Citizenship and Education in Twenty-Eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen,” (IEA Amsterdam, 2001). She served from 1994 to 2004 as chair of the International Steering Committee for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Civic Education Study and was responsible for the research consensus process as well as major parts of a survey design and analysis of an international study that measured adolescents' belief in the importance of citizenship.
The award will be presented at a ceremony during the 117th annual APA convention in Toronto in August at wich Dr. Torney-Purta will deliver a speech entitled, International Research that Matters: Its Science, Art and Culture.
For more information on internationalization efforts of the APA, please visit the APA’s Office of International Affairs website: http://www.apa.org/international/contactus.html |
