Non-parental caregivers, parents, and the school readiness of the children of Latino/a immigrants

School readiness generally predicts trajectories of academic achievement over time, motivating efforts to support the development of school readiness skills by expanding access to and improving the quality of early childhood care and education. One dimension of early childhood care and education concerns the beliefs that non-parental caregivers (e.g. preschool teachers, relatives, child care providers) in these settings have about school readiness and how these beliefs may differ from parent beliefs. Non-parental caregivers’ beliefs—and their alignment with parents’ beliefs—may be especially significant for certain segments of the child population, namely children of Latino/a immigrant parents in the U.S., who are overrepresented among students who enter school with underdeveloped academic skills and whose parents may not have the resources nor the familiarity with the U.S. education system to know what schools will expect of their children upon school entry. Latino/a immigrant parents and their children, therefore, may be more influenced by the school readiness beliefs of non-parental caregivers than other groups. This study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to investigate whether non-parental early caregivers’ beliefs about school readiness and their alignment with parental beliefs are associated with children’s achievement test scores at kindergarten entry—in general and especially among the children of Latino/a immigrant parents.Sociolog

Occupational health and well-being among paid care workers

Work is a meaning laden, but stressful social institution with complex and sometimes contradicting implications for wellbeing. Taking a biopsychosocial approach, this dissertation adapts models of work-related stress typically applied at the individual level to the occupational level and examines how occupational requirements may be appraised differently by workers with different ramifications for their self-reported and underlying wellbeing, even early in the career. Using the care workforce as a case study (e.g., nurses, teachers), it investigates associations between occupational requirements and indicators of early-career wellbeing for a growing, essential, and increasingly diverse segment of the workforce. The aims of this dissertation are to (1) highlight differences in wellbeing between care workers and non-care workers; (2) identify ways that occupational-level requirements shape wellbeing, and (3) show which members of the care workforce shoulder the burdens of this type of work, both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results have wide-ranging implications for not only scholars who study work but also for policy makers, care workers themselves, and care-receiving clients. Together, this dissertation helps build a more comprehensive understanding of how worker wellbeing is stratified by occupation in ways that contribute to inequalities in population health.Sociolog

NONPROFITS: A PUBLIC POLICY TOOL FOR THE PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING

This is the data and replication files for the corresponding publication in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muab01

Positive risk-taking: Mixed-methods validation of a self-report scale and evidence for genetic links to personality and negative risk-taking

Adolescents are more likely to take risks. Typically, research on adolescent risk-taking has focused on its negative health and societal consequences. However, some risk-taking behaviors might be positive, defined here as behavior that does not violate the rights of others and that might advance socially-valuable goals. Empirical work on positive risk-taking has been limited by measurement challenges. In this study, we elicited adolescents’ free responses (n = 75) about a time they took a risk. Based on thematic coding, we identified positive behaviors described as risks and selected items to form a self-report scale. The resulting positive risk-taking scale was quantitatively validated in a population-based sample of adolescent twins (n = 1249). Second, we evaluated associations between positive risk-taking, negative risk-taking, and potential personality and peer correlates using a genetically informed design. Sensation seeking predicted negative and positive risk-taking equally strongly, whereas extraversion differentiated forms of risk-taking. Additive genetic influences on personality accounted for the total heritability in positive risk-taking. Indirect pathways from personality through positive and negative peer environments were identified. These results provide promising evidence that personality factors of sensation seeking and extraversion can manifest as engagement in positive risks. Increased understanding of positive manifestations of adolescent risk-taking may yield targets for positive youth development strategies to bolster youth well-being