Developmental Psychology

Development Within Community and Cultural Contexts

Our program is distinguished by research that integrates individual, interpersonal, and cultural processes of development. Our faculty study these developmental processes in diverse communities and institutions, including families, friends, peer groups, schools, and children’s museums. This integrative training is supported by an NIH training grant that provides funding for graduate students and post-doctoral trainees.

Graduates of our program have accepted faculty positions at such institutions as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Toronto, Stanford University, University of Minnesota, Boston College, University of Wisconsin, Sarah Lawrence College, and Free University of Berlin; applied research positions at Educational Training and Research, and Stanford Research Institute; and postdoctoral positions at UCLA and Harvard.

Some Research Interests of the Developmental Faculty

• Contexts for learning, academic, and scientific achievement, and career identities of cultural minorities and women, including social policy and educational practice [Azmitia, Cooper, Leaper, Rogoff]
• Conversations, narratives, and memory sharing as contexts for language, cognitive, and gender development, and the development of personal and social identities [Akhtar, Azmitia, Callanan, Leaper, Rogoff, Thorne]
• Infants’ and children's cognitive and language development through observation, overhearing, and exploration [Akhtar, Callanan, Rogoff, Wang]
• The development of personality [Gjerde, Thorne]
• Learning and participation structures in informal settings such as museums, families, peers, and communities [Azmitia, Callanan, Cooper, Leaper, Rogoff, Thorne]
• The nature of culture and development: Interdisciplinary theories and research methods that link qualitative and quantitative approaches [Azmitia, Cooper, Gjerde, Rogoff, Thorne]

Faculty Members Focusing on Developmental Psychology

• Nameera Akhtar
• Margarita Azmitia
• Maureen A. Callanan
• Catherine R. Cooper
• Per F. Gjerde
• Campbell Leaper
• Barbara Rogoff
• Avril Thorne
• Su-hua Wang