picture of Barbara Finkelstein

  • Dr. Barbara Finkelstein
  • Professor
  • Room: 3112F Benjamin
  • Phone: 301-405-3588

Ed.D., Teachers College, Columbia University
Joined faculty in 1965

Teaching and Research Interests

Dr. Barbara Finkelstein, is an historian of education who examines historical and cultural dimensions of education policies and practices as they have impinged on the lives of children, youth, minority groups, and women, and shaped the quality of education opportunities available to them. She has received an array of awards for historical work that integrates the experiences of childhood and youth into the history of education in the United States, documents the evolution of teacher behavior in popular primary schools, explores civic purpose in education, and analyzes the involvement of government in child-rearing. She has also done extensive oral historical field work centered n minority group experience with literacy and school reform in both Japan and the United States, and has, through her work as Founding Director of the International Center for Transcultural Education, organized, participated, and engaged students in interdisciplinary research collaborations centering on the recovery of previously invisible historical voices, on reconstitution policies in the United States, immigrant education policies in Japan and the U.S., and cultural stereotyping in the Middle East, Japan, and the United States. She has been past president of the history of Education society, the American Educational Studies Association, and Vice President of Division F (History and Historiography) of the American Education Research Association, editor of the reflective history series at Teachers College Press, and U.S. editorial advisor to the leading European history of education journals. She has published and lectured extensively on the role of teachers as cultural mediators, the uses of literacy among minority groups, the shape of diversity policies in various educational settings, and more recently on the historical roots of child abuse. She has been the recipient of UMCPs Woman of the Year Award, (1997-1998), the UMCP Distinguished International Service Award, (1994-1995), and has been nominated for four consecutive years as EDPL Mentor of the Year.

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Honors, Fellowships, and Citations, 1976 to Present

Honors (Selected)
  • 1997-1998 Woman of the Year, University of Maryland, College Park, MD


  • 1994-1995 Distinguished International Service Award, University of Maryland, College Park.


  • 1989 American Educational Press Association Award for "Distinguished Learned Article, for "Rescuing Civic Learning: Some Prescriptions for the l990s," Theory into Practice. Autumn, 1988: 250-255.


  • 1985 Henry Allan Moe Prize for Excellence in the Arts, New York State Historical Society, for "The Schooling of American Childhood:1820-1920," a chapter in a prize-winning Museum Catalog, A Century of Childhood prepared by the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum, Rochester, New York.


  • 1982 Critics Choice Award: American Educational Studies Association for Regulated Children/Liberated Children: Education in Psychohistorical Perspective.

Research Awards (Selected)
  • 1997-1990 Prince George's County School District, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century Schools: A Policy Study and Partnership for Change.


  • l991-1992 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Senior Science Fellowship, University of Tokyo


  • 1992 United States/Japan Foundation, "Evaluation of Precollege Education Programs"


  • 1990-1991 United States-Japan Friendship Commission, Pacific War Curriculum Policy Study


  • 1976-1977 National Endowment for the Humanities: Independent Fellowship

Citations and Other Awards (Selected):
  • 2000-1987 Who's Who in America, 45th-54th editions, 1988-2000


  • 2000-1982 Directory of American Scholars, I: History.

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Selected Publications

Books, Edited Books, and Monographs
  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). Hidden Messages: Instructional Materials for Cultural Teaching and Learning, with Elizabeth K. Eder, Nancy Traubitz, Alan Chalk, and Corinne Mantle-Bromley. Yarmouth, ME: The Intercultural Press.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). Discovering Culture in Education: An Approach to Cultural Education Program Evaluation. Washington, DC: ERIC Assessment Center on Evaluation and Assessment, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1992). "Education Historians as Mythmakers" Review of Research in Education. Volume 18.Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association: 255-297.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1991). Transcending Stereotypes: Experiencing Culture and Education in Japan, with Imamura, Anne E., and Tobin, Joseph J. Yarmouth ME: The Intercultural Press. Currently in its 3rd edition.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1989) Governing the Young: Teacher Behavior in Popular Primary Schools in Nineteenth Century United States. London: Taylor and Francis, 1989. (Featured and excerpted in Book section, Education News, May 10, 1989). In negotiation with two presses to reissue as a Classic in Education History. (2000).


  • Finkelstein, B. (1979). Regulated Children/Liberated Children: Education in Psychohistorical Perspective. New York: The Psychohistory Press

Journal Articles
  • Finkelstein, B. (Spring, 2000). "A Crucible of Contradictions: Historical Roots of Violence Against Children in the United States," History of Education Quarterly, 40, 1:1-21.


  • Finkelstein, B. (Spring, 1994). "Life at the Margins of Possibility," American Studies Yearbook. University of Tokyo Press, l6, 2: 1-10.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1992). "Dollars and Dreams: Classrooms as Fictitious Message Systems, l790-1930," History of Education Quarterly 31, 4 (Winter, l991): 463-487. Also appeared In Japanese in the Proceedings of the Sapporo Seminar in American Studies. Sapporo, Japan: University of Hokkaido Press.


  • Finkelstein, B. (Winter, l990). Perfecting Childhood: Horace Mann and the Origins of Public Education in the United States," Biography l3, 1 : 6-21.


  • Finkelstein, B. (July/August, l989). "Conveying Messages to Women: Higher Education and the Teaching Profession in Historical Perspective," American Behavioral Scientist, 32, 6: 680-699.


  • Finkelstein, B. (Autumn 1988). "Rescuing Civic Learning: Some Prescriptions for the 1990's," Theory Into Practice. 250-255.An original version appeared as "Thinking Publicly about Civic Learning: An Agenda for Education Reform in the 80's," Alan Jones (Editor). Civic Learning for Teachers: Capstone for Educational Reform. Ann Arbor: Prakken Publications, 1985): 13-25. Won the prize for Distinguished Learned Article by American Press Association.

Chapters in Books
  • Finkelstein, B. (Spring, 2001). "A Crucible of Contradictions: Historical Roots of Violence Against Children in the United States," in Valerie Polakow (Ed.) The Public Assault on America's Children: Poverty, Violence, and Juvenile Injustices New York: Teachers College Press. Chapter 1


  • Finkelstein, B. (2000). "In Search of Status: Teacher Education in the United States, 1790-1990" in Paul Morris, (Editor), Teacher Education in the Asia Pacific Region. Englewood Clifts, NJ: Greenwood Press, Chapter 11: 245-263.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1999, 1992)."Re-doing Urban Educational History," in Roy Lowe, (Ed). Education History in the Twentieth Century, a Review of the History of Education at Century's End, Appeared Originally in 1992. See below: Goodenow, Ronald K., and Marsden, William (Eds.).Education in Four Nations. London: Cambridge University Press l992: 172-195.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). "Classroom Management in the United States, 1790-1990: The Evolving Terrain of Teaching: in Nobuo Shimahara, editor. Classroom Practices and Politics in Cross Cultural Perspective, Garland Press, Chapter 1.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). "Educating Strangers: A Comparison of Cultural Education Policies and Practices in Japan and the U.S., " in Tomoda, Yasumasa and Hirasawa, Yasumasa. Socialization and Multicultural Education Policies and Practices. (Osaka, Japan: Osaka University Press).


  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). "Revealing Human Agency: The Uses of Biography in the Study of Educational History," in C. Kridel (Ed.). Writing educational Biography: Explorations in Qualitative Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc.: 45-59.


  • Finkelstein, B. (1998). "Where Have All the Children gone?: The Transformation of Children into Dollars in Public Law 94-103," in Sue Books (Ed.). Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers: 169-183. (With Reem Mourad and Elyssa Doner).

Research Reports and Policy Evaluation
  • Finkelstein, B. Malen, B., Muncey, D., Rice, .K., Croninger, R. Briggs, L., Redmond Jones, Thrasher, K., et. al. (2000). "Mired in Contradictions: The First Two Years of a Reconstitution Initiative," (College Park, MD. University of Maryland at College Park).


  • Finkelstein, B. (1995). "Traditions and Possibilities: Fifty Years of Pre-College Education Programs," with Tracy Callahan Mahoney and Sarah Pickert. A Policy Study of the United States-Japan Foundation pre-College initiatives. College Park: International Center for the Study of Education Policy and Human Values.

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Presentations, Consultations, & Seminars (Selected):

International/Invited (Selected):
  • (2000 ) International Advisory Board, Tokyo Jo-Gakkan College for Girls, Tokyo Japan.


  • (February, 2001, forthcoming)."Human Rights and Cultural Systems: Dilemmas, Contradictions and Possibilities," Keynote Address to be presented at 25th Anniversary Celebration of the Human Rights Education Network, Tottori, Japan.


  • (1998). "Teachers as Symbolic Mediators in Nineteenth-Century United States." International Society for the History of Education, University of Joensuu, Joennsu, Finland.


  • (December 1, 1993). "Multiculturalism and Human Rights: A View from the United States." International Symposium on Human Rights Education, Osaka Japan. (Sponsored by the City of Osaka and NHK, TV.); Aired: Saturday, December 11, 1993, 9:45 pm, NHK TV.


  • (1992). "Diversity Advocacy in the United States: An Historical Approach to the Pluralist Dilemma in the United States," An invited address at the University of Tokyo under the auspices of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Senior Research Scientist Fellowship Program.


  • (September, 1992). "Hungering for Justice in America." Keynote Address. International Conference on Children's Rights. International Institute for Infant and Child Development. Osaka Japan, September 20, 1992.


  • (1991)."Dollars and Dreams: American Classrooms as Message Systems: l790-l990. Sapporo Seminar in American Studies, Hokkaido University, Japan.


  • (1986). "The Teacher as Cultural Mediator in Early Republican America." European American Studies Association, Budapest, Hungary.

National/Invited (Selected)
  • Education and Curriculum Policy Consultant. Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East. Washington, D.C. "Images of the Other" conference on peace education curricula for an evolving Middle East. 1994-present.


  • Spencer Foundation: "New Directions in the History of Education Conference," Palo Alto, CA, March, 2000. (Forty invited people).


  • Benton Foundation. "History of Children and Youth Conference." Washington, D.C., August, 2000. (20 Invited People).


  • "Linking History and Ethnography in Research: A Collective Conversation: Symposium presentation with Frederick Erickson, University of Pennsylvania and Ronald Butchart, University of Washington, Takoma, History of Education Society Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA . October 25, 1997.


  • "Listening to Communities: A Perspective on the Design and Evaluation of Human Services Delivery, " for a panel entitled: New Models of Human Services Delivery II; Social Networks and Community Support, Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM), Washington, DC, November 7, 1997, with R. Croninger.


  • "Reflections on Refraction: Seeing the U.S. through Japanese Eyes. Gail Kelly Memorial Lecture, University of Buffalo, 1994.


  • "Inventing One Another: Reflections on Seven Years' Study of Japanese Education," American Educational Studies Association Keynote, Chicago: November 3, 1993.

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Professional Positions and Offices (Selected)

  • Immediate Past President, History of Education Society, 1999-2000.
  • President, History of Education Society, 1998-1999.
  • Vice President/Program Chair, History of Education Society, 1997-1998
  • Series Editor, Reflective History, Teachers College Press, Columbia University. 1994-present.
  • Advisory Board, United States Editor, Journal of the History of Education, 1997-
  • Advisory Board, United States Editor, Paedagogica Historica (International Series). 1989- present.
  • Editorial Board, Education Policy, 1985-present

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Dr. Finkelstein's Curriculum Vitae PDF Icon

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Courses Taught PDF Icon

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