Hirokazu Yoshikawa

Hirokazu Yoshikawa

New York University, Steinhardt School of Education

Professor of Applied Psychology

Phone: (212) 998-7826
Email: hiro.yoshikawa@nyu.edu

• Applied Psychology
• Psychological Development

Professor Yoshikawa is currently on leave from NYU for the 2006 - 2007 and 2007 - 2008 academic years.

Research statement

Programs and Policies for America's Poor: How Do They Shape Patterns of Growth and Human Development?

My current research addresses the question: How do different approaches to welfare and anti-poverty policy affect child and adolescent development, and the diversity of families in poverty in the United States? This work integrates theories and approaches of developmental science with those of public policy analysis.
 
 I have applied models of cumulative risk and protection and dynamic systems theories to address how aspects of child care, Head Start, early childhood intervention, and welfare reform affect children's antisocial behavior and school success (Yoshikawa, 1994, 1995, 2000; Yoshikawa & Knitzer, 1997; Yoshikawa, 1999; Yoshikawa & Hsueh, 2001; Yoshikawa, Magnuson, Bos, & Hsueh, 2003; Yoshikawa, Rosman, & Hsueh, 2001, 2002; Yoshikawa & Seidman, 2000, 2001). My colleagues and I are currently examining the relationships between variation in welfare policy approaches and both cognitive and mental health outcomes among children in poverty. We are applying dynamic models of change in family (aspects of the home environment, family and extended networks, indicators of parenting) and in employment conditions (benefits, hours, wages, patterns of wage growth, job stability, etc.) to better understand mechanisms of how policy change may lead to developmental change. In addition, differences in such effects, depending on ethnicity, levels of risk, developmental stages of children, and parents' values, goals, and preferences, are being examined, to ascertain why public policies affect the diversity of America's poor families in such different ways. We integrate methods used in developmental psychology with those from public policy analysis and evaluation science in this work. One set of studies, in addition, conducted in collaboration with Thomas Weisner of UCLA, integrates quantitative and ethnographic methods.

This set of research projects draws from 12 large-scale, experimental welfare reform demonstrations in different states and localities in the U.S., all with longitudinal follow-up data on children's development. The programs include a range of approaches utilized in current state TANF programs since passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. This research, part of the http://www.mdrc.org/project_8_10.html Next Generation research consortium, is being carried out in collaboration with the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) and a group of researchers of poverty and child development from Northwestern University, UCLA, and the University of Texas. My current research in this area is funded by the National Science Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation. 

Examining Cultural and Contextual Influences on School Readiness
 
Together with Diane Hughes of the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and professors in the Department of Applied Psychology (Catherine Tamis-LeMonda and Niobe Way), I am a Principal Investigator of the newly funded http://www.nyu.edu/education/crcde New York University Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education. As part of this Center, funded by the National Science Foundation, my students and I will be conducting research on a longitudinal birth cohort of African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and Chinese infants and their families in New York City, over the next 5 years. We plan to examine such questions as: What are the culturally specific developmental processes that lead to different kinds of school readiness, within each ethnic group? How do families of different immigrant backgrounds make decisions concerning both economic and social investments in children? How do parents in these different groups acquire and make use of information about a range of anti-poverty programs and policies? Survey, observational, and ethnographic data will be collected at birth, 14 months, 24 months, and 36 months of age in order to answer these questions. We are collaborating with sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and others at NYU and elsewhere to address these important research questions.

HIV Prevention Among Gay Men of Color

Twenty years into the AIDS epidemic, there are still no more than a handful of empirically proven prevention strategies for gay men of color. This is an unconscionable gap in public health research, in light of rising rates of HIV infection among racial/ethnic minority gay men in the U.S. My research in this area aims to build theories concerning the culturally specific processes associated with HIV risk behavior among gay men of color. We are focusing on the intersection of two kinds of factors - experiences of discrimination and social networks - as predictors of HIV risk. My students and I are examining these issues among Asian American, African American, and Latino men who have sex with men. This research is qualitative and quantitative in nature.
 
Building on our basic research, we are also developing and evaluating new prevention programs. In particular, through collaboration with the Asian / Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA), my colleagues and I are examining how peer-led prevention efforts at the social network and community levels can best be tailored to Asian and Pacific Islander gay men in New York City.
 
This program of research is supported by the http://www.caps.ucsf.edu/projects/minorityindex.html Collaborative HIV Prevention in Ethnic Minority Communities Program of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco, and funded by NIH.