IRADS: The Study of Culture, Social Setting, and Child Development across School Transitions
Project Summary
The proposed NYU IRADS seeks to advance research and theory on intersections among developmental domains and social settings in urban, ethnically diverse young children and adolescents who are undergoing the transition to formal schooling and high school, respectively. This work is founded on three basic premises: (1) Children's skills in social, emotional and cognitive domains form the synergistic building blocks for healthy developmental outcomes; (2) Social, emotional and cognitive skills unfold in multiple, nested social settings, with home and school representing the two core settings of development; and (3) Different cultural communities present children with unique beliefs and practices that permeate children's experiences and influence virtually all aspects of their development.
Within the context of these critical developmental transitions, the specific aims are to examine: (1) trajectories of and intersections among children's social, emotional and cognitive development; (2) children's experiences of and the intersections between home and school settings; and (3) the ways in which home and school settings jointly and interactively influence children's social, emotional, and cognitive development. For each of these aims, ethnic and gender variations in children's developmental trajectories, experiences, and the intersections between these will be explored, with a particular focus on the ways in which beliefs and practices within cultural communities shape these processes. The Intellectual Merit of this research includes the generation of new, culturally grounded theory and knowledge on the development and experiences of children from diverse ethnic backgrounds across multiple developmental domains, social settings, and significant developmental transitions. In the context of the growing diversity among the nation's children, inquiry into the developmental processes and experiences of children from different cultural communities is needed, especially during major transitions.
Contact
- Principal Investigator: Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Diane Hughes, Niobe Way, and Hiro Yoshikawa
- Department: Applied Psychology
Funding
Funder: National Science Foundation
Project Amount: $2,500,000 for September 2007 - August 2012