Research
Peer relationships are a cornerstone of adolescent development. Fitting in and being accepted by peers can steer adolescents onto trajectories of healthy development, while marginalization confers developmental disadvantage. But how exactly do peers shape adolescent wellbeing? What interpersonal mechanisms account for the health challenges of youth relegated to the social margins? Why do health disparities emerge in some schools, but not others? How can we reduce disproportionate marginalization to promote health equity across students?
My research investigates these questions with the ultimate aim of identifying policies and practices that can improve the wellbeing of adolescents facing marginalization. Focusing in particular on youth across a range of stigmatized identities and attributes (e.g., based on body weight, sexual orientation, gender identity, social class, race/ethnicity) — who are disproportionately marginalized by their peers — I seek to understand strategies of promoting broad-reaching social inclusion at multiple contextual levels (e.g., within friendships, schools, legislation). Within my program of research, I capitalize on extensive quantitative training by utilizing advanced statistical approaches (e.g., multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling) and employ multiple methodologies (e.g., longitudinal, experimental) to study how variations in adolescents’ interpersonal relationships and social contexts at school shape their health outcomes.
Academic and Health Risks of Social Marginalization
At a developmental period when peer relationships take on heightened importance, adolescents who are relegated to the social margins (e.g., lack friends, rejected or bullied by their peers) often face health-related challenges and fare worse academically. Much of my work has helped to illuminate not only the educational and health-related costs of social marginalization, but also the mechanisms underlying these associations. For example, isolation heightens threat perceptions at school in ways that increase psychological distress. Similarly, frequent relational turnover contributes to classroom disengagement and, in turn, declining grades over time. By examining the social processes that account for academic and health-related challenges, my goal is to shed light on how disparities among youth facing marginalization are not inevitable, but instead develop contextually as a function of disparate peer experiences.
Mechanisms of Social Inclusion
A second aim of my research focuses on identifying strategies to promote social inclusion in the school setting as a way to reduce the disproportionate marginalization experienced by students with stigmatized identities and attributes.
At the interpersonal level, my work centers on facilitating cross-group friendships. For example, I find that socioeconomic (SES) achievement disparities are significantly reduced when students’ friendships bridge across peers from different family backgrounds.
At the school level, my research underscores the importance of diversity and inclusion-oriented extracurricular activities. For example, although youth with higher body weight are often mistreated by their peers in ways that compromise academic performance, I find that the academic risk of overweight can be turned up, or dialed down, in any one school as a function of the weight diversity of the student body.
At the structural level, my work emphasizes the role of policy and legislation. An important finding from this work is that adding special protections (i.e., enumeration) for youth with stigmatized identities in school antibullying policies contributes to reduced educator bias. My related findings, currently under peer review, document less frequent weight-based bullying in states that enumerate body weight in their antibullying legislation. Together my goal in this research is to inform policies and practices in ways that ensure all adolescents — regardless of their identities and attributes — are afforded access to the social resources important for educational opportunity.