Chair:  Barbara Gerner de Garcia,  Ed.D.
Contact: Esther King
Fowler Hall (FH)  410

Video Phone: 202-651-5545
Voice: 202-651-5545
FAX: 202-651-5710

The Department provides foundation courses that serve as valuable underpinnings for graduate students pursuing professional preparation programs in other graduate departments at Gallaudet. These include courses in educational psychology, multicultural education, social science statistics, research methods, school law, and other areas.  Students learn to work collaboratively with professionals from other fields.

Our Mission

The Department of Educational Foundations and Research's mission and vision correspond with Gallaudet University's and the Graduate School of Professional Programs' mission and vision. Specifically the Department of Educational Foundations and Research utilizes a transformative framework to provide degrees in International Development as well as foundational courses for other degree programs within Gallaudet University's professional training programs. DEFR course work provides connections across Professional Education Programs that allow students to develop critical thinking skills, obtain experiences with interdisciplinary connections, explore multiple social and professional identities, and understand social responsibility in the context of their preparation as teachers, counselors, administrators, school psychologists, speech and language professionals, and international development specialists who serve deaf and hard of hearing people and people with disabilities.

The Department of Educational Foundations and Research also offers:

Recent Department Activities

Alnoe Tabanera Paler, a talented deaf Filipino photographer, shared his wonderful photographs with Gallaudet University and gave a special presentation to the International Development class.  Zelda Marie R. Sagun, his interpreter, explained the groundbreaking and grassroots movement of providing interpreter training in the Philippines.  Zelda Marie R. Sagun (the interpreter), Hilary Cote (an international development graduate student), and Alnoe Tabanera Paler (the deaf Filipino photographer) smile for a photograph after discussing the situation in the Philippines.

American Evaluation Association awarded Professor Donna M. Mertens, Department of Educational Foundations and Research, the PAUL F LAZARSFELD THEORY AWARD at their annual meeting in Orlando Florida on November 13, 2009.  The Lazarfeld Theory Award is presented to an individual whose written work on evaluation theory has led to fruitful debates on the assumptions, goals, and practices of evaluation.

Mertens posits that the field of evaluation can transform society through work that shares - or brings - the voices of those pushed to societal margins into the world of research. This applies to those discriminated and oppressed due to factors including but not limited to race/ethnicity, disability, immigrant status, political conflicts, sexual orientation, poverty, gender or age as well as power structures that perpetuate social inequities and indigenous people and scholars from marginalized communities undergoing change.  Mertens explains that "The transformative approach to evaluation makes explicit the use of evaluation for the purpose of furthering social justice."

International development students viewed the premier of the film, "La Americana" at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). The film centers around a Bolivian woman who makes a dangerous and illegal journey to New York City knowing she may never return home, to earn enough money to pay for the medical care needed for her disabled daughter. Pictured here is the director of the film, Nicholas Bruckman, (center) with Eirin Kallestad (second from left) from the IADB, and graduate students Kathleen Wijiting, Sarah Houge, and ID graduate, Lisa Fisher.  

International Development Graduate Students (from left), Amii Limpp, Nicar Bocalan and Dayak Dashuwar, attended Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) 15th year anniversary celebration on Tuesday Oct. 20th. MDRI presented Congressman Patrick Kennedy with the Human Rights Award. This celebration had an amazing line up of inspiring speakers featuring Executive Director of MDRI Eric Rosenthal, Entrepreneur and Investment Banker Ted Kennedy Jr,. and Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Gallegos. Congressman Patrick Kennedy called for a united front against genocide, torture and abuse of people with disabilities.

Sarah Houge, a second year student in the international development master’s program, presents a gift of thanks to David Morrissey, executive director of the United States International Council on Disability (USICD), for speaking to students about USICD’s work in advocating for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Morrissey also spoke to the students about the importance of working, writing, and volunteering during their graduate studies in areas that build their portfolio and moves them in the direction of their desired careers.

Graduate School Dean Carol Erting (left), and Educational Foundations and Research Department Chair Barbara Gerner De Garcia (right) congratulate Educational Foundations and Research professor Donna Mertens on the publication of three of her books in the past year. Dr. Mertens authored Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology: Integrating Diversity with Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods (Sage, 2010, now in its third edition), and Transformative Research and Evaluation (Guilford Press, 2009). She is co-editor of The Handbook of Social Research Ethics (co-edited by Pauline Ginsberg, Sage, 2009).

Dr. Donna Mertens, a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Research, was invited to make presentations in several international venues during the summer months. She presented "Theoretical Groundings in Mixed Methods Research: A Transformative View" at the International Mixed Methods Conference in Harrogate, England, where the formal announcement was made of her accepting the editorship of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. The co-editor is Max Bergmann of the University of Basel, Switzerland. Mertens presented "Transformative Research, Ethics, Inequality, and Human Rights" at the University of Johannesburg, and "Transformative Research: The Complexities That Challenge" at the North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, where she also conducted professional development activities. She gave two presentations, "Transformative Mixed Methods Research" and "Researcher-Participant Partnerships: Radicalizing the Relationship and Exploring Ethical Options," at the American Psychological Association meeting in Toronto, Canada. (On The Green, Gallaudet University, 10/09)

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