Douglas Larkin

Biography

Douglas B. Larkin is a Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Montclair State University in New Jersey. His main research concerns the preparation of science teachers for culturally diverse classrooms, and issues of equity and justice in teacher preparation. He worked as a high school physics and chemistry teacher for ten years—most recently in Trenton, NJ—and also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching physics and mathematics in Kenya and Papua New Guinea. He received his Ph.D. in Teacher Education in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

His most recent book, co authored with Suzanne Poole Patzelt, is "The Reasons Teachers Stay: Lessons from High-Retention Schools, Districts, and Communities." A second edition of his book “Teaching Science in Diverse Classrooms: Real Science for Real Students,” was published in 2025. He currently serves as PI on a Noyce STEM-4-STEM Track 1 undergraduate scholarship grant (co-PI Dr. Mika Munakata, Dept. of Mathematics) at Montclair State University with funding from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Larkin serves on the Board of Directors for NARST, and the Board of Trustees for the Knowles Teaching Initiative.

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Research

Dr. Larkin's current research agenda is shaped by a desire to strengthen the structures that support equitable and effective secondary science education in a variety of contexts. Unfortunately many reform efforts concerned with equity often seem to bypass secondary school teachers—a situation he aims to address in his work. His research agenda and expertise follows four thematic strands: 

1. Equity and justice-centered high school science teaching 
2. Science teacher recruitment, preparation, and retention 
3. School science departments as sites for science education reform. 
4. Antiracist teacher preparation