Carras Award Recognizes Research and Scholarship of Junior Faculty Members

This past spring, the Steinhardt School awarded two faculty members the Carras Award for promising research and scholarship. The annual award was established in recognition of former Associate Dean W. Gabriel Carras, who during his 50-year career at NYU mentored junior faculty.

Cultural Aspect of Taste

Gabriella Petrick was honored for her article, "In Good Taste: Rethinking American History with Our Palates," which will be published this fall as part of a roundtable discussion on the history of the senses in the Journal of American History. In their paper, Petrick and her coauthor, Gerard Fitzgerald, seek to balance the biological, social, and cultural aspects of taste by illustrating how industrialization shaped the flavor of food and how these factors contributed to changing perceptions of what tasted "good."

Social Aggression Among Girls

Elise Cappella received a Carras Award for her study, "The Prevention of Social Aggression Among Girls," published in the journal Social Development.

Q: Can you tell us how girls differ from boys in their expression of aggression?

Girls and boys both use a variety of aggressive behaviors. The focus of intervention and research used to be on boys and their aggression - hitting others, threatening to beat others up, calling others mean names. I was interested in targeting more subtle and insidious forms of aggression — rumor spreading, for example, and malicious exclusion — that are prevalent in late elementary and middle school, especially among girls. Boys tend to use more overt aggression while girls use more social aggression. Girls use social aggression mainly against other girls, and girls experience their involvement in these conflicts more powerfully than boys do.

Q: What have you learned from your study?

I learned that involvement in social conflicts and relational aggression are meaningful parts of girls' lives. Yet there are real alternatives that can allow girls to be both assertive and respectful across a variety of challenging social situations. With engaging and salient group interactions designed to increase emotional understanding and social problem solving, adults and peer leaders can help provide tools for young people to navigate conflicts from multiple perspectives during a conflict.

I also learned that a focus on social aggression is useful when embedded within broader school initiatives. At the school level, a proactive policy of prevention and intervention, communicated widely and reinforced consistently, can be helpful in creating a climate that supports the learning and development of all students.