Yoshikawa earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Yale University in 1987, followed by a Masters in Music for piano performance from the Juilliard School in 1989.
Yoshikawa then turned his attention to psychology, earning a Master's of Arts and a doctorate in the subject from New York University in 1992 and 1998, respectively.
From 2011 to 2013, Yoshikawa held the Walter H. Gale Professorship of Education and was academic dean of the HGSE.
[2] In 2018, the American Academy of Political and Social Science elected him the James S. Coleman Fellow.
[3] Yoshikawa was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.