My research focus is on adolescence and emerging adulthood and the production of critical methods to explore this time of identity development. I am interested in three key issues: 1) how youth identities develop relationally over time and place; 2) theoretical frameworks for understanding identity during adolescence and emerging adulthood; and 3) critical methods to improve our understanding of youths’ lives and multiplicity of identity. I have researched these questions through two main studies – my master’s thesis on The Internationals Network for Public Schools (INPS) in New York City and my dissertation study of The SOURCE Teen Theatre in Sarasota, FL.
Presenting at SPSSI 2010 in New Orleans with Michelle Fine, Stephanie Anderson and Rod Watts.
My primary interest is how we develop our identities in connection with others (relationally) over time and across places and contexts. My master’s thesis, a study of students in a network of New York City schools that serve recently arrived immigrant youth (INPS), examined how these students dialogically enacted their social and educational identities in their transition from high school to college. This study led to my conceptual understanding of “traveling power” — how interactions and conversations can be developmentally useful over time and as we enter into new or unfamiliar contexts. This research was presented The International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, The American Psychological Association, and The International Conference on the Dialogical Self. I also contributed to an article in Anthropology and Education Quarterly and am first-author on a book chapter (in press) in Schools and Marginalized Youth: An International Perspective edited by William Pink.
Second, I am interested in advancing theoretical frameworks for understanding youth and adolescence that are dialogical, relational, and ecological. Such an approach recognizes personal processes of identity development (dialogical), how these get enacted (relational), and how identity development occurs within nested social environments (ecological). In my research I have looked out how dialogical self theory (Hermans and Kempen, 1993) can explain developmental processes that occur in the classroom and in community settings for adolescents. Dialogical self theory also provides a useful framework for understanding how youth develop counternarratives of identity that resist popular narratives of “urban”, “immigrant” and “teen.” I have written about such theoretical framing of questions of youth, school and identity for an invited essay review in Curriculum Inquiry.
An "identity map" created to document how participation in a theatre group stayed with the participant.
A third issue I am concerned with is how researchers who study identity construct critical and participatory methods that present a more nuanced picture of multiplicity, agency and voice. I have worked with my mentor on the concept of “identity mapping” — a visual method that I have used with individuals, in focus groups, and longitudinally to understand complex experiences of identity, injustice and personal transformation. My work with maps and visual methods shows that such methods can make research more participatory and able to capture the complexities of multiple identities that are often difficult to verbally narrate, particularly for immigrants and young adults.
These theoretical interests and multi-faceted approach to research have allowed me to engage in a variety of interdisciplinary projects that have resulted in a strong publication and presentation record. In my next phase of research I will elaborate on developmentally important spaces for children, adolescents and young adults and the effects of policy on these spaces. I am particularly interested in how neoliberal policies such as high stakes testing are influencing interpersonal development.