FRONTIERS OF RESEARCH ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES: INITIATIVERECOGNIZES YOUNG AND MID-CAREER SCHOLARS

Deborah Phillips and Anne BridgmanInstitute of Medicine, National Research Council

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The social and behavioral sciences are becoming more recognized, withfederal research budgets increasing substantially over prior years. They arealso experiencing a period of rapid expansion, with prior boundaries betweendisciplines, between basic and applied research, and between various levels of analysis ranging from the neurological to the community, being seriouslyreassessed and reformulated. The questions being asked by social andbehavioral scientists are increasingly ambitious, focusing, for example, on the big social questions of race relations, the role of technology, andprecursors of violence and conflict, and often involving multi-investigator,large-scale investigations. At the same time, critical questions about thereadiness of the field to support and sustain social and behavioral research,effective strategies and mechanisms for communicating this research to thepublic, and the preparation of the next generation of scientists are thesubjects of debate. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This triad of issues surrounding infrastructure, public education, and training pro-vides the departure point for this special section of the Journal of Community Psychology.The articles featured in this section were prepared as part of an initiative of the Boardon Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council (NRC)1 and the In-

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JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 27, No. 5, 511–516 (1999)© 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0090-4392/99/050511-06

Correspondence to: Deborah Phillips, Institute of Medicine, National Research Council, Board on Chil-dren, Youth, and Families, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, 2101 ConstitutionAvenue, Washington, DC 20418.Deborah Phillips and Anne Bridgman are staff members of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families. TheBoard operates under the joint auspices of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.1The NRC is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering,and the Institute of Medicine.

stitute of Medicine (IOM) aimed at fostering the careers of outstanding and innovativeyoung investigators. The initiative was designed to provide an opportunity for these in-vestigators to communicate their research to the public and policy audiences, and pro-vide institutional recognition and support for their research involving collaboration withcommunity organizations, work with national datasets, and assessment of localized in-terventions. Young scholars conducting social and behavioral research have little op-portunity to interact and share their research with people who can make the best use oftheir work, including state and federal legislators; policy and other decision makers atthe federal, state, and local levels; and practitioners engaged in providing services to chil-dren, youth, and families.

To facilitate the interchange of information among these groups, the Board on Chil-dren, Youth, and Families launched the Frontiers of Research on Children, Youth, andFamilies initiative in 1997.2 The Board was created in 1993 to provide a national focalpoint for authoritative, nonpartisan analysis of child, youth, and family issues in the pol-icy arena. Operating under the joint aegis of the NRC and the IOM, the Board is well-positioned to bring the collective knowledge and analytic tools of the behavioral, social,and health sciences to bear on the development of policies and programs for children,youth, and families. It does so primarily by establishing interdisciplinary committees ofexperts to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate research with regard to its implications forcritical national issues,3 and by disseminating the reports of these committees. One ofthe Board’s primary goals is to bring cutting-edge, policy-relevant research to the atten-tion of those who are most likely to benefit from it. The Frontiers initiative is a primeexample of such an undertaking.

The Frontiers initiative’s goals are to:

• highlight recent policy-relevant research on children, youth, and families by juniorresearchers,

• encourage more sustained interactions between these researchers and policy mak-ers, and

• foster the development of junior scholars who work at the intersection of scienceand public policy.

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2The Smith-Richardson Foundation provided planning support for the Frontiers initiative; the Ford Founda-tion and the Foundation for Child Development provided continuing program support.3Among the issues that the Board has addressed are welfare reform, bilingual education, family violence, thehealth and adjustment of immigrant children and families, youth development, child health, and child carefor low-income children. Board members are: Jack P. Shonkoff (chair), Heller School, Brandeis University:Sheila Burke, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; David Card, Department of Eco-nomics, University of California, Berkeley; Kevin Grumbach, Department of Family and Community Medicine,University of California, San Francisco; Maxine Hayes, Washington State Department of Health; Margaret Hea-garty, Department of Pediatrics, Harlem Hospital Center, Columbia University; Sheila Kamerman, School ofSocial Work, Columbia University; Sanders Korenman, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, City Univer-sity of New York; Cindy Lederman, Circuit Court, Juvenile Justice Center, Dade County, Florida; Sara McLana-han, Office of Population Research, Princeton University; Vonnie McLoyd, Center for Human Growth and De-velopment, University of Michigan; Paul Newacheck, Institute of Health Policy Studies and Department ofPediatrics, University of California, San Francisco; Paul Wise, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Medical Cen-ter; Evan Charney (liaison from IOM Council), Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts MedicalSchool; Ruth T. Gross (liaison from IOM Board of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention), Department of Pedi-atrics (Emerita), Stanford University; Eleanor Maccoby (liaison from NRC Commission on Behavioral and Social Sci-ences and Education), Department of Psychology, Stanford University.

In August 1997, individuals and teams of researchers were invited to submit appli-cations describing research that related to the symposium’s theme, “The Developmentof Human Potential in the 21st Century: Opportunities at the Intersection of Familiesand Communities.” Applicants had to have received their advanced degrees within thelast 15 years. Research was required to meet the high-quality standards of peer-reviewedjournals in the field and have implications for policy. Applicants were expected todemonstrate a track record of scholarship in their field that reflected their post-degreework. Applications were encouraged from investigators in diverse fields, including poli-cy, economics, psychology, medicine and public health, law, social work, sociology, urbanplanning, and education. Applications were encouraged from individuals in academic aswell as nonacademic settings (such as research firms, community nonprofit groups, andpolicy organizations). Teams of researchers could apply, in which case all members ofthe team had to have received their degrees within the last 15 years.

Although it was not necessary for each application to include the following elements,priority was given to scientists whose research:

• spans the developmental continuum (early childhood, middle childhood, adoles-cence) or is longitudinal;

• is interdisciplinary;

• highlights an assets as opposed to a deficits approach;

• is intervention based; and

• tests innovative methodological approaches, including blends of quantitative andqualitative methods.

Special attention was given to research that promotes the participation of minorities(based on race, ethnicity, and gender) and that focuses on diverse populations, as wellas to research that involves explicit collaboration among researchers, policy makers, andpractitioners. The applications were subject to a competitive process by the Frontierssteering committee, a panel of the NRC and IOM.4

On May 7, 1998, nine young and midcareer scholars selected by the committee pre-sented their research at a symposium at the National Academy of Sciences in Washing-ton, DC. The scholars, chosen for work that is both exemplary on scientific grounds andhighly relevant to policy, presented research addressing the following topics:

• The effect of welfare on three-generational families: Under welfare reform, unmarried,minor parents receiving welfare must live with their own parents or another qual-

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4Members of the Frontiers Steering Committee were: Heather Bastow Weiss (chair), Director, Harvard FamilyResearch Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Claire D. Brindis, Associate Adjunct Professor, Uni-versity of California, San Francisco, Director, Center for Reproductive Health Policy Research; Peggy Davis,John S.R. Shad Professor of Law, New York University School of Law; Robert C. Granger, Senior Vice Presidentof Finance and Administration, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation; Fernando A. Guerra, Di-rector of Health, San Antonio Metropolitan Health District; Beatrix A. Hamburg, then-President, William T.Grant Foundation; Hope M. Hill, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Howard University, and Di-rector, Violence Prevention Project; Renee Jenkins, Chairman and Professor, Department of Pediatrics andChild Health, Howard University Hospital; Rod Radle, Director, San Antonio Alternative Housing; DeborahStipek, Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, and Di-rector, Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School; S. Leonard Syme, Professor of Epidemiology, Divisionof Public Health Biology and Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley; Richard Weissbourd, TheWiener Center for Social Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

ified adult. Proponents of this provision maintained that eligibility for welfare ben-efits may encourage teenage mothers to leave home before they are ready and thatliving at home can support young mothers’ life progress. Rachel Gordon, who wasa research scientist at the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work,NORC and the University of Chicago and a research scientist in psychiatry at theUniversity of Chicago at the time of this issue’s submission, summarized the re-search relevant to this policy, including studies of the prevalence, predictors, andconsequences of the three-generation households that form when young motherslive with both their parents and their children. Among her findings: Most minorparents lived with their parents prior to welfare reform and receipt of welfare ben-efits does not appear to have encouraged independent living. Consistent evidencesuggests that teenage mothers achieve greater economic self-sufficiency when theylive in three-generational households; however, they also exhibit poorer parentingskills and the effects on their children and parents remain unknown. Gordoncalled for future research and evaluation to include: collection of data that betteridentifies minor parent families living in senior parents’ households; use of whole-family perspectives that look beyond the minor mother to the well-being of herparents, children, and other family members; studies that consider the selection ofteenage mothers into various living arrangements when studying their conse-quences; and consideration of the positive and negative aspects of minor mothers’living arrangements, including family functioning and social networks.

• Combatting street gangs: The large urban street gang has changed significantly in thelast decade, creating novel problems and challenges for communities. Accordingto Sudhir Venkatesh, junior fellow at Harvard University, the most prominent shiftsinclude a turn toward entrepreneurialism and a heightened use of violence; in ad-dition, there has been greater organizational strength and the emergence of cross-ethnic alliances among Latino, African American, and Asian American gangs. Todate, social policy has tended to rely on law enforcement approaches to curb gangactivity, a strategy that has not yielded much success in either reducing criminali-ty and violence or assisting communities besieged by gang-related problems. In hiswork, Venkatesh examines community-based interventions in the Chicago metro-politan area that aim to respond to the modern-day practices of local street gangs.These approaches are unique in that each attempts to engage a range of commu-nity players, including social service agencies, churches, schools, and law-enforce-ment bureaus. They also seek to build on existing social networks to devise a bot-tom-up approach to street gang activity, for example, one that works throughexisting social networks and relationships as opposed to imposing a set of guide-lines from the top down. An exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of theseefforts can help inform our understanding of the relationship of gangs and com-munities and the means by which gang activity can better be addressed by research,policy, and practice.

• African American teenage boys’ perceptions of the opportunities and constraints in their com-munities: In his investigation of African American adolescent males’ perceptions oftheir community resources and constraints, Michael Cunningham, assistant pro-fessor of psychology, African and African Diaspora Studies Program, Tulane Uni-versity, found that adolescent males hold high career and educational expectationsdespite being aware of serious problems in their neighborhoods (e.g., drugs and

514 • Journal of Community Psychology, September 1999

violence) that others might expect to militate against positive life goals. The studyalso found that adolescent males communicate with parents and teachers—not justpeers—when confronted with negative experiences such as exposure to stabbings,fights, and discrimination. One mechanism that the adolescent males used to copewith such negative experiences, particularly discrimination, involved adopting in-flated notions of male gender roles and degrading views of females, perhaps as aface-saving strategy. Cunningham made suggestions for prevention and interven-tion programs.

• Promoting success and preventing disruptive behavior in school: Research suggests thatchildren’s educational achievement can be improved by addressing issues of ag-gression and disruptive behavior, because academic difficulties and problem be-haviors create a cycle in which each problem exacerbates the other. David Arnold,assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, and his col-laborators, found that the relationship between academic development and be-havior problems begins early, suggesting that programs to address these issuesshould start with young children. Furthermore, efforts to improve achievement aremost likely to succeed when they focus on children’s motivation and engagementin school as well as their academic skills. As part of this research, programs at homeand at school are being coordinated and community partnerships are being de-veloped to test these approaches and facilitate children’s healthy development.

• Early intervention in low-income rural communities: Compensatory programs that aimto reduce the negative effects of poverty on children and families often translatepoorly in rural Appalachian communities, where geographic isolation and pover-ty can undermine intervention efforts. Energy Express—a summer program forlow-income schoolchildren sponsored by the West Virginia University ExtensionService in collaboration with local, state, federal, and private partners—featuresnutritious meals, literacy-based activities, and parent and community involvement.In so doing, it provides a context for understanding policy issues as they relate toeducating low-income children, demonstrating significant program effects on read-ing achievement, child motivation, and relationships between children and men-tors. Gretchen Butera, associate professor, Early Intervention, Department of Ed-ucational Theory and Practice, West Virginia University, and Van Dempsey,associate professor, Educational Foundations, West Virginia University, addressedthe discourses—how meanings are created and used to interpret the world—ofrural and low-income communities and their relation to effective interventionstrategies and policy development.

• How structural factors affect urban neighborhoods and put individuals at increased risk ofpoor health and development: Recent global and national trends have put a growingnumber of US families and children at risk for adverse health and developmentaloutcomes. Policies and programs designed to address these problems have too of-ten focused on the characteristics of individuals as the root cause and have failedto significantly address core problems. Margaret O’Brien Caughy, assistant profes-sor, University of Texas–Houston School of Public Health for the MPH Programat the University of Texas Southwestern-Dallas; Patricia O’Campo, associate pro-fessor, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Johns Hopkins University; andAnne E. Brodsky, associate professor, psychology, University of Maryland, suggestthat researchers, program planners, and policy makers should go beyond the fo-

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cus on individuals to incorporate and target larger structural issues such as in-creasing poverty, growing economic inequalities between rich and poor, and erod-ing public social programs. Their research also demonstrates the importance oflarger social structures for individuals’ health and has implications for policy,namely: Neighborhoods are an important target for intervention; policy makersmust take a multi-issue approach to addressing problems of the central city; pro-grams should build on community resources and infrastructure as well as address-ing needs of individual residents; and a “one-size-fits-all mentality” will not produceviable solutions when designing programs to serve poor neighborhoods.

Eight other scholars received honorable mentions.5

The Board hopes that these articles contribute to fostering much-needed discussionsbetween researchers and policy makers on subjects of importance to children, youth, andfamilies.

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5The Frontiers Honorable Mention Scholars and their work are: Lisa Berlin, Research Scientist, Center for Chil-dren and Families, Teachers College, Columbia University: Welfare-to-Work Policies in Child-Mother Relationships inPoor, African-American Teenage Mothers and Their Preschool Children; Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, Assistant Profes-sor, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Co-Associate Director, Program for Research on BlackAmericans, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan: Health Consequences of Family Transitions to Ear-ly Childbearing; Constance Flanagan, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Extension Education, Penn State Uni-versity: Families, Communities, and the Social Contract in America; Neena Malik, Assistant Director, DependencyCourt Intervention Program for Family Violence, Miami, Sharon Morris Aaron, Advocacy Coordinator, De-pendency Court Intervention Program for Family Violence, Miami, and Gregory Lee Lecklitner, Project Direc-tor, Dependency Court Intervention Program for Family Violence, Miami; Dependency Court Intervention Program;Arthur Reynolds, Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Department of Child and Family Studies, Uni-versity of Wisconsin, Madison: Child–Parent Centers: Longitudinal Effects of an Extended Intervention for Children andFamilies at Risk; Donald Unger, Associate Professor, Department of Individual and Family Studies, University ofDelaware: Promoting Positive Family–Professional Partnerships in Early Intervention Programs: Single Parents and TheirChildren in Low-Income Communities.