Andrew Meltzoff honored by the Association for Psychological Science

, UW professor of psychology and co-director of the UW-based Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, has been recognized by the Association for Psychological Science with a for 2020.

Meltzoff was one of four this year to receive the , which is given to members of the association, or APS, to honor “their lifetime of significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology.”

The association praised Meltzoff, saying his “landmark studies in infant development helped reconfigure our understanding of preverbal cognition.

“Meltzoff demonstrated imitation in early infancy and proposed it as a powerful social learning mechanism by which infants begin to acquire the behaviors, skills, and norms of their culture. Through a set of classic studies, Meltzoff made key discoveries concerning the nature and functions of imitation in childhood.”

Meltzoff is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology. Other recipients of the award this year are from Stanford University, University College London and the University of Michigan.

The award, the highest the association gives for contributions to the science of psychology, is named for American psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910).

***

Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team wins SeaDoc Society’s 2020 Salish Sea Award

The ‘s detection and study of the dangerously invasive European green crab has brought it the from the University of California, Davis-based .

The society, a program of the UC Davis, awards its Salish Sea Science Prize every two years to recognize scientists “whose work results in the improved health of fish and wildlife populations in the Salish Sea.” The award was announced on Earth Day, April 22.

The is an invasive species affecting ecosystems worldwide, damaging shellfish harvests and other native species and habitats. In the Pacific Northwest, it could harm Dungeness crab populations and eelgrass habitats.

Thanks to the WSG Crab Team, “major scientifically based efforts are being made to stop its spread before it starts,” the SeaDoc Society wrote. The Salish Sea Prize comes with a no-strings $2,000 cash award.

The WSG Crab Team, which is housed in the and supported through the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife, created a volunteer-based early detection and monitoring program for the European green crab that includes a map of “at-risk” sites, allowing prioritized monitoring of susceptible estuaries and lagoons. The team also provides technical expertise to government and tribal resource managers and information to the public.

Jeff Adams is project lead for the and Emily Grason is program manager. P. Sean MacDonald, a College of Environment faculty member, is co-principal investigator and Kate Litle is assistant director for programs at Washington Sea Grant.

Grason called the European green crab “probably the most notorious and damaging marine invasive on the planet.”

She added: “It’s unfortunately not just on our doorstep here in the Salish Sea, but it’s wandered into our foyer as well. Our goal is to keep it from overstaying its welcome.”

Read more on the SeaDoc Society . For more information, contact Grason at egrason@uw.edu

***

National honors for College of Education researchers

Several faculty and students with the have received honors for 2020 from the .

, assistant professor, received Outstanding Dissertation awards in two categories and honorable mention in a third for her 2019 dissertation, “.” Listen to a with Washington.

Assistant professor , who studies teaching and learning writing in diverse classroom contexts, received an Early Career Award in the language and social processes category. Listen to a with Machado discussing her work.

Associate professor , a researcher with the , received an Outstanding Contribution to the Field Award in the category of education and sport. Hoffman wrote the recent book “.”

Other awards included an Out-of-School Time Emerging Scholar award for doctoral student ; and Miller and fellow doctoral student being accepted into the , co-sponsored by the association.

The association, called the AERA for short, canceled its April annual meeting, for the first time since World War II, due to the pandemic.

Read more about the honors and recipients on the college .

A reviewer from Stanford University wrote that Banks’ book of essays “illustrates the importance of the current quests by marginalized groups around the world for full citizenship and sheds light on the heated and divisive debates that are taking place around citizenship and civic education.”

Banks has gathered many titles over the years; he is the Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies Emeritus and the founding director of the UW’s , which is now the

He is the author of many books and dozens of articles. Often referred to as “,” Banks retired from the UW in 2019 but remains active professionally.

UW Notebook caught up with Banks for a few questions about his new book.

What guided your choices as you gathered these essays from across your career?Ìý

James Banks: Because I am an African American who grew up in the Arkansas Delta in the 1950s and 1960s, I was denied many citizenship rights that most White Americans take for granted because of racial segregation. For example, our school’s yearly visit to the zoo in Memphis, Tennessee (which is about 60 miles from Marianna, Arkansas, the town in which my school was located), was a highlight of the school year. However, we could only visit the zoo on the day reserved for Blacks, which was Thursdays. Consequently, the yearly visit to the Memphis zoo is a both a painful and joyous memory.

Because of my personal journey in the South and later in Chicago after I migrated there in 1960, how to change schools and social studies teaching so that African Americans and other marginalized groups would attain full citizenship rights became a major goal of my teaching and publishing career. This collection of essays consists of articles that I published from 1983 to 2019 that focus on ways in which the social studies and civics curriculum in schools can be changed so that students of color and other marginalized groups can attain full citizenship rights within the schools and society writ large.

The book explores what you term “the citizenship-education dilemma.” Could you explain that a little? Is it about the disconnect of teaching democratic values in an often unequal and unjust world context?Ìý

J.B.: Yes, the “citizenship education dilemma” is about teaching students about justice and equality when they are being educated in schools and a nation that contradict and violate the values and ideals they are being taught.

I was educated in a racially segregated school in which we walked five miles to and from school, while the White students rode to school in a bus that spilled mud on us as it speedily passed us on the muddy road. That is one of my most powerful and poignant memories of my school days. Yet each day in the school morning exercise we said, “I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Our Black teachers knew there was not “liberty and justice for all” in the Arkansas Delta nor in the United States. That is why our teachers required us to sing both the “Star-Spangled Banner” and the Negro National Anthem, “,” every morning in morning exercise. Our teachers wanted us to develop an identity and loyalty to the United States but also an identity with our cultural and ancestral roots.

Throughout the U.S., students are still experiencing a “citizenship education dilemma” because they are learning about democratic ideals and social justice in schools and a nation that are highly stratified by social class inequality and in which racism, sexism and negative attitudes toward LGBTQ people are widespread and institutionalized.

You write that students can learn democratic values by directly experiencing them in transformative classrooms, which you envision in the book. To the non-educator or parent, what might transformative classrooms look like?Ìý

J.B.: In a lengthy, engaging, and informative 2018 history of the United States that I finished reading last night, , “All over the world, populists seeking solace from a troubled past sought refuge in imagined histories.” In the U.S. as well as in most other nations, the social studies curriculum is replete with “imagined histories”: national myths, the denial and marginalization of the struggles of diverse racial, cultural, ethnic and religious groups, and the glorification of and the conquering of indigenous groups such as Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians.

In the transformative curriculum, students develop the knowledge and skills that are needed to question “imagined histories,” to construct versions of history that reflect the struggles and experiences of diverse groups within the nation, and to conceptualize ways in which they can take civic action to make their local communities, the nation, and the world more humane and just.

They examine case studies of transformative citizen actors, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, who took actions that violated local laws but which actualized human and civil rights. In transformative classrooms, students learn to know, to care, and to act to make their communities and nation more just and humane.

Do you remain hopeful for the future in such a time as this?Ìý

J.B.: , the great African American educator and founder of Bethune-Cookman University said, “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” My African Americans teachers in Arkansas were greatly influenced by the teachings and example of Mrs. Bethune. Consequently, I have internalized her ideas about faith and hope.

As educators we must be hopeful, and we must have faith that our work will make a difference. Faith and hope enable us to wake up every morning and to keep going — believing that we can make a difference. Without faith and hope we are immobilized.

***

Other education book notes:

Jennifer Hoffman book studies connection between higher education and sports

A new book by UW College of Education faculty member , delves into the intersection of athletics and higher education, exploring how college athletics departments reflect many characteristics of their institutions and are susceptible to many of the same challenges in delivering on their mission.

One of the book’s key messages is that all who work in higher education must view sports not merely as a spectator, but also be mindful of ways sports can be more educational and purposeful on college campuses.

The book also explores the level of control athletes have over their name, image and likeness. Hoffman is a faculty affiliate of the UW’s

Learn more and listen to a podcast with Hoffman on the College of Education .

***

Education faculty Meredith Honig, Lydia Rainey to publish book on supervising school principals

An upcoming book by College of Education faculty members and will explore how school district leaders can more effectively support principals as instructional leaders. “ will be published in May by Harvard Education Press.

Based on extensive research of school district central offices, the authors argue for a shift in the focus from an orientation of compliance and evaluation to one where administrators are learning partners for the principals.

Honig is a professor in the program and an adjunct professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Rainey is a research scientist and director of research for the College of Education’s . The college plans a on the topic in coming months.

***

Three UW researchers among editors for ‘Education in Movement Spaces’

“” is a new book edited by

, and of the UW and Timothy San Pedro from The Ohio State University.

Studying recent social movements in the U.S. — from Standing Rock to Black Lives Matter — the book shows the vital connections among Native American and Black communities in education.

Contributors to the book — scholars, educators and organizers — highlight the importance of activist-oriented teaching and learning “in community encampments and other movement spaces for the preservation and expansion of resistance education.”

Django Paris is the James A. & Cherry A. Banks Professor of Multicultural Education and directs the Banks Center for Educational Justice. Rae Paris is an assistant professor of English and affiliate of the center and Alayna Eagle Shield a research assistant. The book was published in April by Routledge.