Name: Angelique Aitken
Title: Assistant Professor of Education
Department: Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education
Phone: 814-863-8002
Email: angelique.aitken@psu.edu
Office address: 212A CEDAR Building
Directory entry: https://ed.psu.edu/directory/dr-angelique-aitken
Angelique Aitken, assistant professor of education, comes to Penn State’s College of Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was an assistant research professor. Prior to that, she was an IES research fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. During her professional career, Aitken has served as associate general counsel for Washington, D.C., Public Schools, behavior interventionist and a special education teacher.
Aitken obtained her doctorate in learning, literacies and technologies, with an emphasis in special education, at Arizona State University. She also has a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and a juris doctorate from the University of California Hastings, College of the Law.
Aitken’s research surrounds literacy interventions for developing readers and writers with high-incidence disabilities and the teachers who support them. To date, her research has centered on literacy instruction, literacy motivation and special education. At Penn State, Aitken will continue to focus on reading research, particularly interventions that incorporate writing as a tool for learning.
“My primary research objective is to develop an effective and fun reading and writing instructional framework, with an anti-racist approach, for elementary students in inclusive classrooms,” Aitken said, adding that her project is a next step in the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) framework.
“Teachers and students will analyze social studies and historical texts using a critical, analytic reading strategy where they consider the impact on multiple stakeholder groups, equity, and how these events are relevant to their lives today.”