How do we understand the operation of social settings, such as families, classrooms, schools, peer groups, and community-based organizations, where children and youth have many of their formative daily experiences? How do we understand and measure social setting processes (i.e., practices, transactions, norms), or what I refer to as social regularities (Seidman, 1988; 2012)? How do these social regularities affect youths’ positive and negative developmental trajectories? And, how can this knowledge inform the creation of programs and policies to promote positive youth development (Seidman & Cappella, 2017)? These questions reflect my long-standing and current interests and work. My current research focuses on providing teachers feedback about their actual practices, how these practices change over time, and in turn, impact student academic and socio-emotional learning as well as teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction in developing countries.
