Dr. Filipe Recch is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Practice in Educational Research at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education. Using methods from political science, comparative education, and data analysis, he studies how curriculum, governance, and policy affect educational outcomes.
One of Dr. Recch’s primary research agendas focuses on how K-12 textbooks in low- and middle-income countries affect different populations of students and the regionalization of education. Employing computational text analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP), he studies large collections of curricular materials to identify patterns and understand how these vary in terms of space and populational characteristics. By adapting NLP methods to non-English contexts, his work with Brazilian textbooks has revealed that textbook content correlates with performance, school characteristics, and broader educational outcomes. Additionally, in a study of Indian textbooks, he found shifts in historical narratives that suggest evolving understandings of national identity and different population experiences.
Beyond curriculum analysis, Dr. Recch investigates how policy coordination and governance structures shape access to high-quality education. Focusing on decentralized systems, he has studied Brazil’s educational policy alignment across municipal and state governments, identifying conditions under which coordinated approaches can influence access to educational opportunities. This comparative perspective allows him to draw insights relevant to various contexts, including how parallel education systems—such as charter schools in the United States, selective schools in the United Kingdom, and private schools more broadly—may produce unequal learning opportunities.
Before pursuing his doctorate, Dr. Recch worked for five years in the social development and education departments of a state government in Brazil. He holds a Ph.D. in International Comparative Education and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Stanford University. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, he served as a Postdoctoral Research and Policy Associate at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
