Other Research
Although not directly supported by CRCW, many of our faculty associates are
engaged in research that is directly related to improving the health and
wellbeing of families and children.
Jean Grossman is engaged in a number of projects designed to improve the wellbeing of youth. This work is carried out in conjunction with researchers at applied research organizations such as Public/Private Ventures (PPV) and MDRC. One set of studies focuses on
Mentoring Programs to determine whether "created" adult/youth relationships can, in fact, have positive impacts on healthy adolescent development. Another set of studies examines
After School Programs to determine what effects these programs have on young people’s academic and social behavior. A third project focuses on
Pregnancy Prevention Programs to determine if neighborhood-based programs that improve communication about responsible sexual behavior can reduce unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Dr. Grossman also teaches courses on evaluation in the Woodrow Wilson School.
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Anne Case and
Christina Paxson have studied
the effects of parental loss on school enrollment in 10 African countries. They
find that orphans are at a pronounced educational advantage. However, this
disadvantage does not appear to be due to poverty: Although children who lose
fathers are poorer than others, these children are no less likely to be in
school than non-orphans. Instead, maternal and double orphans are at heightened
risk of not being in school—and are less likely to be enrolled than are
non-orphans with whom they live. Case and collaborators have studied the effects
of parental loss on education in a demographic surveillance site in KwaZulu-Natal,
South Africa, and find that maternal death impedes children’s progress through
school. She and Paxson are planning a study to examine the effects of orphan
hood
in a more detailed manner, by collecting longitudinal data on the health and
developmental outcomes of children in this surveillance site where, with its
high HIV/AIDS rate, approximately 20% of children followed are expected to lose
at least one parent by the age of 10.
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Katherine Newman
directs a project that explores divergent patterns of departure from the
parental home in Western Europe, Japan, and the U.S. While the age of
independence has been rising steadily in Spain, Italy, and Japan, it has
remained remarkably early in the Nordic countries. In the U.S., variations by
race, class, and religion in the proportion of adult children who remain at home
are pronounced. Newman’s interest is in changing subjective conceptions of
adulthood, the consequent elongation of parental responsibility, and the
cultural and political conflicts that attend the mismatch between social policy
(retirement, unemployment, etc.) and the demography of modern families.
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Devah Pager is investigating the
impact of incarceration on the economic difficulties of young men. Prior
research has found that men coming out of prison face poor employment prospects
relative to their non-incarcerated peers. The question that remains is, would
these men’s employment opportunities have been any better in the absence of
incarceration? Many of the men who wind up in prison had few job skills to begin
with, and their post-prison work patterns may therefore merely reflect
pre-existing characteristics. Pager seeks to investigate whether the stigma of
incarceration itself limits future employment opportunities.
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Alexandro Portes directs a longitudinal study designed to examine the
adaptation process of immigrant children. The original survey was fielded in
1992 on a large sample of children attending the 8th and 9th grades in public
and private schools in the metropolitan areas of Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
and San Diego, California. The survey collected baseline information on
immigrant families, children’s own demographic characteristics, language use,
self-identities, and academic attainment. Three years after baseline, a
follow-up study and a parental study were conducted. The total sample size was
5,262. Respondents came from 77 different nationalities. The data are available
on the
Center for Migration and Development website.
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Cecilia Rouse
directs the
Education Research Section, an interdisciplinary unit within
Princeton's Industrial Relation Section and the Woodrow Wilson School that
promotes the use of research in education decision-making. ERS seeks to conduct
and promote high quality education research through the use of experimental and
quasi-experimental research designs, and to disseminate the results of such
research to educators, policy-makers, and the public in order to improve the
quality of education at all levels. Dr. Rouse has conducted research on the
economic benefit of community college attendance, evaluated the Milwaukee
Parental Choice Program, examined the effects of education inputs on student
achievement, and tested for the existence of discrimination in symphony
orchestras. Her current research includes studies of Florida's school
accountability system and randomized evaluations of the use of computers in
schools.
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Marta Tienda directs
THEOP which is a multi-year study that investigates college planning and
enrollment behavior under a policy that guarantees admission to any Texas public
college or university to high school seniors who graduate in the top 10 percent
of their class. The study includes administrative data on applications,
admissions and enrollments from 12 colleges and universities that differ in the
selectivity of their admissions as well as a longitudinal survey of sophomores
and seniors who were enrolled in Texas public schools as of spring, 2002. The
data are available through the
OPR data archive.
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