Lois A. Yamauchi

Research Overview

Lois A. Yamauchi’s research focuses on learning and how culture influences the educational experiences of students and teachers, particularly those from Indigenous and marginalized backgrounds. Her research incorporates the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) model of education and she led a team that developed the model for preschoolers. Through her CREDE work, Dr. Yamauchi has assisted educators who work with Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Greenlandic learners to implement Instructional Conversations, small group discussions that include students’ cultural and everyday interests and backgrounds to develop learners’ conceptual understandings.

Lois Yamauchi grew up in Honolulu, Hawai‘i and attended public schools and the University of Hawai‘i. She worked as a drama educator in the public schools before returning to graduate school at the University of Hawai‘i, where she received her PhD in Psychology. For her dissertation research, Dr. Yamauchi lived in the Pueblo of Zuni and studied cultural influences on education for Zuni children. Since returning to Hawai‘i, she has focused much of her work on classrooms serving Native Hawaiian learners. She has also worked with Greenlandic educators who adapted the CREDE model for early childhood education in their country. In all of her work, Dr. Yamauchi collaborates with colleagues, students, and community members. In 2021, she received the Peter V. Garrod Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award for her work mentoring graduate students in research.