Derek Taira

Derek Taira serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration within the College of Education at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His scholarly work centers on the complex relationship between Native Hawaiians and American schooling during Hawaiʻi's Territorial Period (1900-1959), with a forthcoming book titled Forward without fear: Native Hawaiians and American Schooling in Territorial Hawaiʻi, 1900-1941 scheduled for publication by the University of Nebraska Press in Summer 2024.

Dr. Taira earned his PhD in History & Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016. His research examines how Native Hawaiians navigated, resisted, and transformed Americanization efforts in public schools through various forms of cultural preservation and political activism. His work challenges conventional narratives about Americanization's success by documenting how Native Hawaiians used education as a tool for cultural survival and community advancement.

His scholarly publications reveal consistent themes of Indigenous agency, educational colonialism, and cultural resistance. Taira's research demonstrates how Native Hawaiian students, teachers, and community members actively preserved their language and culture through petitions, legislative efforts, and everyday classroom practices despite aggressive Americanization policies that sought to erase Hawaiian identity through English-only instruction and Eurocentric curricula.

• 2021 Spencer Foundation Communication Grant
• 2019 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship
• 2018 Spencer Foundation Small Grant ($44,000) supporting research on Native Hawaiian navigation of Americanization
• 2017 Claude A. Eggersten Dissertation Prize from the History of Education Society

Dr. Taira actively serves the academic community as Associate Editor of the History of Education Quarterly (2019-2022), reviewer for multiple academic journals, and committee member for various professional organizations including the Organization of American Historians. He maintains affiliations with the Indigenous Politics Program in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Pacific Island Studies at UH Mānoa. His work connects historical educational practices to contemporary issues of Indigenous sovereignty and cultural revitalization.