Public Policies as Contexts of Human Development
Friday, 8:30 AM - 10:15 AM
Hynes CC 312

Speaker: Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Chair: Kathleen McCartney, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Biographical Sketch
Hirokazu Yoshikawa is a Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He conducts research on the effects of employment, anti-poverty, and early childhood policies on parents and children; low-wage employment and child development; and culture, immigration, and early childhood development. He is a PI of the NSF-funded Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education at New York University. He has presented at multiple Congressional briefings on social policy and child development, and has served on national advisory committees for the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Academy of Sciences. He consults regularly with governmental and non-governmental organizations in the U.S. and abroad, including most recently UNICEF as well as the governments of Mexico and Chile, on the topic of early childhood education. He is a member of the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation of the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, and is a member of the board of directors of Zero to Three: National Center for Infants and Toddlers. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University.

Abstract
This lecture presents recent research on the effects of public policies as social contexts on child development, as well as future directions for innovation in the study of public policy and child development. Topics considered include assessing and measuring policy-relevant contexts, cultural and international diversity in the effects of policies on children; proximal setting characteristics and developmental mechanisms that intervene between the policy level and individual-level growth; developmental differences in effects of particular policies; methodological approaches, including quantitative and qualitative methods, and experimental and non-experimental designs, in studies of policy and human development; and issues of training, disciplinary approach, and career opportunities.