Dr. Tata Mbugua
Professor of Education
Dr. Tata J. Mbugua, is a Professor of Education and Director of Undergradute Programs (Education Department) at The University of Scranton for the past 20 years. Dr. Mbugua holds a Bachelors degree from University of Nairobi (Kenya), and a Masters degree and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Ohio University (USA). She has more than 24 years of university teacher training experience and extensive international educational collaborative partnerships with Germany, Kenya, Singapore and Slovakia. For over 10 years, she has directed international service trips for University of Scranton students, faculty and alumni to Kenya (Catholic University of Eastern Africa - CUEA) and Slovakia (Trnava University).
Keenly aware of the importance of preparing educators who have the knowledge, skills and dispositions of our interconnected and interdependent global community, Dr. Mbugua developed a graduate travel course (Cross-Cultural and Global Perspectives in Education) where University of Scranton students registered in the course travel to Kenya and Slovakia for two weeks for practical application of course content and perspective taking as culturally responsive educators. In 2008, Dr. Mbugua spent her sabbatical within the European Union as a visiting scholar at Trnava University, Slovakia, and as a guest lecturer at University of Vienna, Austria, and University of Heidelberg, Germany. Currently, she is engaged in international faculty collaboration with faculty in Slovakia, Kenya and Germany. Dr. Mbugua completed a sabbatical at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) during Fall 2017.
Her scholarly interests are in the area of early childhood and elementary education; cross-cultural and global perspectives in education, academic service learning as a pedagogical approach to teaching, and the educational and psycho-social needs of HIV/AIDs orphans in Kenya. She has published articles and book chapters in all four areas of scholarship. In addition, she recently completed translating the third edition of Association for Childhood Education International’s (ACEI) "Global Guidelines Assessment Tool for Early Childhood Education" into Swahili – one of fifteen languages it has been translated into. Dr. Mbugua is a member of the editorial boards for Journal of Pedagogy (SR) and Early Childhood Education Journal.