Faculty & Research

Penn GSE has long been known for strength in ethnographic research and qualitative methods, studies of language and literacy and practitioner inquiry. In recent decades, we've also developed world-class capacity in quantitative methods, policy and evaluation, higher education management, and professional psychology.

Research Matters

Producing research that serves the field of education and generating scholarship that advances knowledge and in education and social science is central to Penn GSE's mission. An exciting and intellectually vibrant community of scholarship and ideas, we discover new knowledge and solutions that advance education across the lifespan. Our work is as diverse as the field of education itself, from studies of early childhood literacy, teacher professional development, mathematical reasoning, and state and federal funding policies, to explorations of children's identity development, youth violence prevention, and how institutions of higher education can be effective partners in civic advancement.

Small. Powerful.

For a relatively small school of education, our faculty has a remarkable record of getting grant money to support research. Over the last five years, we have secured $40 million in funding for our work. About half has come from the federal government (principally from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation) and half from a variety of private foundations, state governments, and corporate sponsors that share our interests and passions for education. Grant funding can come in a package as small as a few thousand dollars for a professional development intervention with teachers in the city of Philadelphia, or as large as a multi-million dollar award to establish a cross-disciplinary center for the study of cognition and science instruction.

Find out more

Read @Penn GSE, A Review of Research, a semi-annual digest of the scholarly work of our faculty - it's not a comprehensive account of "intellectual product" by any means, but a fair representation of kind of scholarship going on in our school.

You can also write Tom Kecskemethy, GSE's Director of Communications, if you have questions about education research at Penn, or call him at 215.898.9642.

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