Mills faculty and students in the School of Education are engaged in a variety of important areas of research practice, including:

At-Risk Infants: Working with medically fragile high-risk preterm infants, pre-natally drug exposed infants, and those with early childhood trauma, Professor Linda Perez is co-director of the Special Start Training Project (SSTP) that is housed in the Mills College School of Education. The SSTP is nationally recognized as California's first relationship- and system-based, process-oriented, family-centered training and education program model for medically fragile and preterm infants in the home environment following hospital discharge from the neonatal intensive care nursery. Utilizing principles of the SSTP model, Dr. Perez has contributed to the development of an infant mental health intervention program in nearby San Mateo County for low-income, primarily monolingual Spanish-speaking mothers who are seriously mentally ill and parenting infants in the first five years of life. Her work in this area created the foundation for the Mills master's degree in infant mental health. Dr. Perez also contributes to the Digital Storytelling Project organized by the Zero Tolerance for Domestic Violence Initiatives.

Civic Engagement: Joseph Kahne, professor of educational leadership and dean of the School of Education, studies the democratic purposes of schooling. Dean Kahne is the research director for the California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools—a broad non-partisan statewide initiative that aims to support reform in schools and districts throughout the state. To further this work, he has administered the California Civic Survey to several thousand high school seniors from a diverse array of districts in California in both 2005 and 2006. The Civic Survey examines the distribution and impact of varied civic learning opportunities on a range of civic and political outcomes, the findings from which have been presented to policy makers, elected officials, and educational leaders throughout the state and beyond. In addition, in partnership with the PEW Research Center, Dean Kahne is examining young people's engagement with digital games and the relationship of those activities to their civic and pro-social development. Findings from the survey will be released in Spring 2008. More information on Dean Kahne's scholarly work is available at http://www.civicsurvey.org.

The Mills College Lesson Study Group, which has major grants from the National Science Foundation and the federal Department of Education, is directed by researchers Catherine Lewis, PhD, and Rebecca Perry, PhD. Adjunct professors Shelly Weintraub and Stan Pesick provide video examples of lesson study in social studies and history.

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Professor Tomás Galguera, whose research interests are in the pedagogy of teacher preparation with an emphasis in preparing teachers to teach English learners, embodies principles and methods associated with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), championed by Lee Shulman, past president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning has pioneered the use of electronic technology to make teaching and learning visible and to critique and build upon represented instances of practice. Each semester, Professor Galguera asks students to publish websites documenting their inquiry projects. Here are two examples: (Student A) (Student B). For more information, visit Professor Galguera's website.

Teacher Education: Professor David Donahue has investigated various curricular practices in teacher education such as service learning, the disciplinary- and genre-specific nature of reading, and the connection between arts learning and learning to teach. His scholarly interests are framed by a long-standing interest in human rights, a commitment to learning in the subject areas in which he prepares teachers, and a concern with the scholarship of engagement. His research with the Strategic Literacy Initiative explored reading across the secondary school curriculum, and his work with the Arts Education Initiative led to a better understanding of arts integration in middle and high schools.