Dr. Joshua Brown to serve on Steering Committee of the University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium

Dr. Joshua Brown has been elected to serve as one of five Senior Representatives on the Steering Committee of the University-Based Child and Family Policy (CFP) Consortium.

The Consortium includes over 35 member institutions, and focuses on advancing scientific collaboration on child and family policy issues, cross-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate training to support the next generation of child and family policy researchers, and effective translation of research-to-policy and research-to-practice. The Consortium holds weekly calls and regular web-available presentations by researchers and policy scholars open to all faculty and graduate students in the Applied Developmental Psychology program.

Anastasi Lecture Paints Bleak Picture of Class Disparity

Contact: Tom Stoelker (212) 636-7556 tstoelker@fordham.edu

Henry Braun, Ph.D., delivered the 2014 Anastasi Lecture. Photo by Tom Stoelker

Growing economic disparity in America is shattering the American Dream, and there’s plenty of data to back the up the assertion. This was the none-too-subtle message that Henry Braun, Ph.D., delivered at the seventh Anastasi Lecture at Fordham Lincoln Center on Oct. 21.

“There really is this hollowing out of the middle class,” said Braun. “What used to be considered working class is now looking very poor. Today, most working people couldn't find $400 in case of an emergency.”

Braun, the Boisi Professor of Education and Public Policy at Boston College, laid out data illustrating that gross differences in opportunity have “implications for inter-generational mobility, the national economy, civil society, and the democratic polity.”

“More and more, the circumstances of birth cast a long shadow on a child’s life trajectory,” he said, adding that situation could almost be described as “deterministic” with little chance of a child breaking free from his or her economic background.

“The accelerated accumulation of advantage or disadvantage leads to profound differences in opportunities between those born at the top of the ladder and those born at the bottom. When children enter kindergarten, it's far from a level playing field.”

He said that poor parents' lack of social capital prevents them from working the system, and puts them at a disadvantage before the child even begins school. Little time can be devoted to literacy activities, affecting even the cumulative number of words the child hears, learns, and repeats. A child on welfare has a recorded vocabulary size of 525 words, whereas a child in professional household has a vocabulary size of 1,116 words. Once the poor child arrives at school, wealthy parents will continue to outspend poorer parents to further their child’s enrichment.

“It’s not just the number of words that matter, but it’s also the quality of the interaction,” said Braun.

Braun detailed the disparate trajectories through data, graphs, and charts. He compared rich and poor students in high school, extra school activities, and on through college. He factored in race and racism, zoning and housing policies, as well as residential and school segregation.

“School segregation is increasing, it’s actually a hyper segregation,” he said.

In the end, he said “like marries like,” with high school graduates marrying high school graduates, college graduates marrying college graduates, thus increasing the rich/poor disparity.

He said that as the nation grows further apart through divergence of wealth—a process he called “self-reinforcing”—only a serious change in the social contract could help alleviate the problem. But partisan bickering at most every level of government won’t allow for it. He said that focusing on the income inequities only exacerbates divisions. Instead, he suggested that advocates for change focus on an “opportunity for all” message, which would be palatable to both conservatives and liberals, and resonate with America’s perception of itself.

Braun said it’s vital for researchers to be able to frame the crisis in narratives that are palatable to the general public and appeal across party lines.

“Finding ways to communicate to the public is something we on the research side don’t do very well, but we must find a way to do it in ways that are not accusatory,” he said.

“Most Americans do believe that this country should be a land of opportunity. This is what brought millions to this country and we're sadly failing future generations.”

Established in 2008 as part of the activities of the Anastasi Professorship for Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, the Anastasi Lectures honor the late Anne Anastasi, Ph.D., former chair of Fordham Psychology Department. The lectures are delivered by leading experts in psychology, educational measurement, industrial and organizational psychology and quantitative methods.

Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 15,100 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in West Harrison, N.Y., the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y., and the London Centre in the United Kingdom.


Original blog post: http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/eNewsroom/topstories_3320.asp

2014 Anastasi Lecture set for October 21st

 It’s Complicated: The Ongoing Saga of Opportunity in America

Speaker: Henry Braun, Boisi Professor of Education and Public Policy, Boston College
When: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Where: 12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein Center at 113W. 60th Street, Lincoln Center Campus

The lecture is open to the public. A reception will follow.

Abstract

America has always seen itself as a Land of Opportunity. Over the last four decades, a torrent of data on growing inequality, have led many to doubt that view of our nation. Inequality of opportunity may be both the most fundamental and the most amenable to public and private action. Gross differences in opportunity have consequential implications for intra- and inter-generational mobility, the national economy, civil society and the democratic polity. I will offer a framework for understanding the complex dynamics driving differences in opportunity from birth to adulthood, and how those differences interact with the changing labor market to determine adult outcomes and offer some thoughts on how we can close the opportunity gap.

About the Speaker

Henry Braun is the Boisi Professor Education and Public Policy and Director of the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Education Policy at Boston College. From 1979 to 2006 he worked at the Educational Testing Service where he served as vice-president for research management and held the title of distinguished presidential appointee. He is a co-recipient of the 1986 Palmer O. Johnson Award of the AERA and a co-recipient of the NCME’s 1999 Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Educational Measurement. His interests include school and teacher accountability, the role of testing in education policy, and analysis of large-scale survey data.

For more information, contact David Budescu, Ph.D. (budescu@fordham.edu).

Presented by the Anne Anastasi Professorship in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology. Additional support by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Psychology Department.

Alumni Accomplishments: Jessica H. Mirman, PhD

Fordham Psychology ADP alumna, Jessica H. Mirman, PhD, recently had a paper published in JAMA Ped about her research on teen drivers. The paper describes the results of a randomized controlled trial to test the effect of a parenting intervention on parents' supervision of pre-licensed teen drivers.

The intervention, developed by Dr. Mirman and her colleagues, called TeenDrivingPlan (TDP), is the first to successfully demonstrate that parents can be trained to be more effective practice supervisors and that this supervision is directly linked to teens' skill acquisition.

More information can be found on Dr. Mirman's blog post announcement.

Applied Developmental Psychology Student Wins 2014 APA Division 52 Student International Research Award

Sheena Jeswani, Applied Developmental Psychology, is one of four students awarded the 2014 APA Division 52 Student International Research Award, which recognizes promising graduate student research in international psychology.

Sheena submitted her Master's thesis, which focuses on social support, coping strategies, well-being, and depression in Filipino and American college students.

Congratulations, Sheena!

Marital Satisfaction Paper Selected as Editor's Choice

The Journal of Gerontology: Social Science has selected a collaborative paper by faculty members of the Fordham University Department of Psychology, the Jewish Home Lifecare's Research Institute on Aging at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Rutgers University Department of Sociology as Editor's Choice for their most recent issue.

Dr. Daniela Jopp, Dr. Laura Sosinsky, and Dr. Se-Kang Kim contributed to the article entitled: "His" and "Her" Marriage? The Role of Positive and Negative Marital Characteristics in Global Marital Satisfaction Among Older Adults.

Dr. Jopp was also recently featured in a CBS2 New York news segment on longevity and aging.

Congratulations to all involved!

Dr. Jopp's Centenarian Research Featured In The New York Times

Daniela S. Jopp, Ph.D. was recently interviewed for an article published in The New York Times about the Fordham Centenarian Study, a research projected directed by Dr. Jopp on the characteristics and experiences of people who approach 100 years of age.

Dr. Jopp discusses some of the main findings of her work, which indicates that people approaching 100 years of age tend to have a positive attitude despite having “on average between four and five illnesses, which are pretty disabling and hinder them from doing the things they want to do.”  Dr. Jopp’s work suggests that the key is their ability to accept and adapt to their impairments. Very old individuals also tend to be extroverted, have strong social networks, and exhibit “self-efficacy,” which is a feeling that they are in control of their own lives. Dr. Jopp also discusses a new phenomenon where, due to longer life expectancies, some parents and children are experiencing old age together, which can create unique challenges for a family.

The full article can be read on The New York Times website here.

Dr. Jopp is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Applied Developmental Program and the head of the Adult Developmental and Aging Lab and the Fordham Centenarian Study.