Alison Bryant Ludden Assistant Professor of Psychology

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Adolescent

Development

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Research Projects
  • Broadly speaking, my research focuses on adolescent development and the influence of the multiple contexts of school, family, peers, and neighborhoods on the promotion of adolescents’ educational resilience and healthy development. Through my interdisciplinary work integrating developmental and educational theories, I examine various synergistic and compensatory influences on adolescents’ behaviors.

  • Through my survey research with adolescents in urban and rural public secondary schools, I have examined such topics as role models among African-American adolescents, academic achievement and cigarette use among a national sample of adolescents, achievement motivation and substance use among youth from urban schools, popularity and social goals in school among adolescents from rural schools, and extracurricular activity involvement among African-American adolescents.

  • Some of the themes across these various interests relate to better understanding how social groups of adolescents are organized in school, how achievement and problem behaviors in school and out of school are connected, and why adolescents change in their beliefs and behaviors over time.