https://www.fcd-us.org/srcd-2023-biennial-meeting-events/
The Foundation for Child Development is excited to share featured events at the upcoming Society for Research in Child Development’s 2023 Biennial Meeting, which will be held March 23-25 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Foundation’s sessions highlight our Young Scholars Program, Scholars of Color Series, and the work of our grantees. We encourage you to attend, and we look forward to seeing you at the sessions listed below!
Special Event*
Centering Equity in Child Development: What can we learn from leaders in the field?
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 1:45 – 3:15PM MDT
Description
This salon session will explore the work of preeminent scholars of color, Drs. Asa G. Hilliard III, James Comer, Cynthia García Coll, Ruby Takanishi, and Megan Bang to broaden the understanding of their seminal contributions to early care and education (ECE) and child development more broadly. As we face the challenges of this unique time in history, child development professionals have much to learn from their scholarship focused on building racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically responsive and inclusive ECE systems, programs, and practice to promote equity. Their legacies help us to better understand the underpinnings of systemic racism, xenophobia, and poverty in the early childhood classroom and beyond and to imagine more equitable ways of supporting young children to meet their developmental potential.
Researchers who have followed the careers of these eminent scholars of color will engage in a moderated discussion. Speakers will reflect on key findings or concepts from each of these scholars and delve into their current relevance for advancing equity in child development, child assessment, early educator preparation, instructional practice, and early educator well-being.
Speakers
- Charlyn Harper Browne, Center for the Study of Social Policy
- José M. Causadias, Arizona State University
- Camille J. Cooper, Yale Child Study Center
- Ananda Marin, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
- Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University
Moderator
- Vivian Tseng, Foundation for Child Development
Date and Time
Wednesday, March 22, 4:00 – 7:00PM MDT
Description
In states across the U.S. and in countries around the world, policymakers have passed or are considering legislation to restrict topics that educators are allowed to discuss in their classrooms, including racism and gender identity. At the same time, many communities are becoming more diverse and equitably teaching all children – including those from ethnically/racially minoritized groups, multi-lingual learners, immigrant youth, and those with different gender identities – is a pressing need as educators seek guidance about how to teach and support the development of all children in their classrooms. The goal of this preconference is to provide research evidence and guidance on how to build ethnically, racially, linguistically, socio-culturally responsive and inclusive classrooms. The pre-conference will present cutting-edge research on the science of equitable and inclusive teaching and opportunities to discuss the implications of those research findings for both classroom practice and for policy.
Speakers
- Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky
- Stephanie Curenton-Jolly, Boston University
- Michelle Love-Day, Jordan School District
- Frosso Motti-Stefanidi, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
- Iliana Reyes, University of Arizona
Date and Time
Thursday, March 23, 11:45AM – 1:15PM MDT
Description
In this salon session, child development and education leaders from diverse backgrounds will share their personal journeys and advice on how to craft equity-focused careers at the nexus of research, practice, and policy. They will also discuss ways that academia can reward and support the scholars who pursue that work.
Speakers
- Leah Austin, National Black Child Development Institute
- Stephen Russell, University of Texas at Austin
- Ruth López Turley, Rice University
Moderator
- Vivian Tseng, Foundation for Child Development
Building Your Research Career: Funding Opportunities Across the Professional Continuum
Date and Time
Thursday, March 23, 5:00 – 6:30PM MDT
Description
This session will focus on career fellowships and funding opportunities available across the continuum of a researcher’s career trajectory. The American Educational Research Association (AERA); Foundation for Child Development; Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF); Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD); and Spencer Dissertation Fellowships are key sources for fellowships and funding opportunities. The goal of this session is to engage participants and provide information on several available career advancement and professional development opportunities.
Participants
- Jennifer Brooks, Jennifer L Brooks, LLC
- Maria Gahan, National Academy of Education
- Andrea Kent, Foundation for Child Development
- Bonnie Mackintosh, United States Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation
- Lindsay Trammell, Society for Research in Child Development
- George Wimberly, American Educational Research Association
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 9:30 – 10:15AM MDT
Description
The COVID-19 pandemic was met with the need for school districts nationwide to implement remote, virtual school environments for the remainder of the 2020 academic year and the ones to follow. Social media coverage of online schooling illustrates the potential devastation of this learning environment on rural students, as they are disproportionately represented in reports of delayed testing, missed assignments, and inconsistent uploads of completed homework. These educational shifts have implications for hindering learning, thereby compromising students’ capacity to thrive academically in an online schooling versus a stable in person-learning environment (Goldstein, 2020). In the same way, rural residents’ ways of living have been characterized as a “rural code” of behavior, reflecting resilience in the manner in which their strengths and values are the foundational basis by which they respond and adapt to social changes (Brown & Schafft, 2011). Given this, we contend that using a strength-based approach to examine how rural families came together to address challenges associated with COVID-19 pandemic may offer insights on effective ways to highlight strengths of rural communities to address academic disparities of rural students and, in turn, enhance rural education.
Authors
- Marlena Debreaux, Vanderbilt University
- Catherine Gonzalez-Detrés, Vanderbilt University
- Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 10:15 – 11:45AM MDT
Description
As early care and education (ECE) classrooms become increasingly diverse, the need for professional development (PD) to facilitate enriching, responsive instruction is crucial to achieving positive child outcomes for emerging multi-lingual or dual language learners (EML, DLL). Often, PD is not individualized to teachers’ professional experiences, or specific to strategies for working with EMLs/DLLs, nor does it allow teachers agency in their choice of PD; it is not intensive or systematic. In this symposium, studies explore PD and suggest how PD can be effective in supporting high-quality, culturally and linguistically responsive practice.
Panelists
- Caitlin Coe, Fordham University
- Alex Figueras-Daniel, National Institute for Early Education Research
- Angie Zapata, University of Missouri
Discussant
- Iliana Reyes , University of Arizona
Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Asian Leadership and Empowerment
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 10:15 – 11:45AM MDT
Description
The goal of this panel discussion is to highlight the strength and empowerment of Asian leadership. In a system of stereotyping and discrimination, Asian individuals have been seriously deprived from leadership positions. Asian-culturally endorsed leadership qualities such as modesty and social conscientiousness are often misconstrued as a lack of assertiveness or confidence. This panel brings together four extraordinary Asian American leaders, including a president of a research foundation, a president of a scientific organization, an associate dean and department chair, and a chair and board member of several international committees across fields, to discuss the unique strengths, opportunities, and challenges for Asian scholars in the leadership arena.
Panelists
- Charissa Cheah, University of Maryland
- Jeff Lewis, Texas A&M University
- Vaishali Raval, Miami University
- Vivian Tseng, Foundation for Child Development
Moderators
- Yoonsun Choi, University of Chicago
- Qi Wang, Cornell University
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 10:15 – 11:45AM MDT
Description
The far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — coupled with co-occurring events and historic inequities rooted in structural racism — are expected to have lasting adverse effects on children’s physical, mental, and socio-emotional development. The Committee on Addressing the Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Families will release its report in early 2023. This study addresses the consequences of and solutions to the long-term effects of COVID-19 on children living in marginalized communities. COVID-19 has caused unprecedented impacts on the lives of children and families as a result of illness and death; public health safety measures, including school closures; social isolation; financial hardship; food insecurity; disrupted sleep; and gaps in health care access. Co-occurring with the pandemic has been racial trauma, including violence against communities of color; protests against that violence; and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Latino, and Native American families. This session will include a conversation with committee members from an array of disciplines and institutions about impacts of the pandemic on children and families across domains, programs and economic and social policies needed to promote recovery, and the report recommendations.
Panelists
- Tina Cheng, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
- Tumaini Coker
- Michelle Sarche, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Moderator
- Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University
Date and Time
Friday, March 24, 3:30 – 5:00PM MDT
Description
SRCD has historically been well positioned to educate researchers, practitioners, and the general public about children’s development. In 2015 the Governing Council listed “integrating diversity” as a strategic goal. In 2021, the Anti-Racism Task Force was convened to identify how SRCD can become more actively anti-racist. Despite evidence that SRCD is fully committed to this strategic goal, SRCD still needs to fully reckon with its racial past. The 2006 publication of Our children too: A history of the Black Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1973-1997 chronicles much of the structural racism evidenced in (a) portrayal of ethnic-racial minority children in research; (b) exclusion of ethnic-racial minority members from SRCD governance/committees, and © lack of support for ethnic-racial minority members’ career paths. Building on the transformative 2019 Townhall highlighting SRCD’s ongoing struggle with equity and inclusion, SRCD membership must deepen the connection between dialogue and action regarding its racial history by drawing on members’ experiences. “Truth-telling” is an essential step toward building and sustaining a more racially equitable organization. The roundtable will offer a focused and deliberate dialogue regarding how the research literature and the treatment/inclusion of ethnic-racial minority scholars have shifted over the past 40 years and whether/how this history “shows up” in current practices and literatures. Dr. Ellen Pinderhughes will moderate the panel. All panelists are senior ethnic-racial minority scholars with extensive experience publishing research on minority children and a long history of leadership involvement in organizations devoted to developmental science (SRCD, SRA, ISSBD).
Panelists
- Nancy E Hill, Harvard University
- Diane L Hughes, New York University
- Deborah J Johnson, Michigan State University
- Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University
- Emilie Phillips Smith, Michigan State University
Moderators
- Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Tufts University
Date and Time
Saturday, March 25, 1:30 – 3:00PM MDT
Description
These scholars will candidly share how historical, geographic, and socio-economic contexts, the politics of science, and our intersectional identities shaped the 40-year evolution of our individual programs of research on African American families. McBride Murry’s program of research embodied the metaphor of “toxic waters flowing down stream,” that create environmental conditions that shape everyday life experiences of families, children, youth, and their communities, with long term effects on development, health, and wellbeing. To survive and thrive, families are required to build capacity to navigate daily adversity that take an alarming toll on them. She will share particulars about her professional journey to rethink the conceptualization of resilience, strength-based, cultural framing to action-oriented research and methodological approaches that advance equity through policies and practices.
Speakers
- Linda Marie Burton, University of California, Berkeley
- Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University