Jessica Harding Mid-Term Report
The New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women Scholarship contributed funding for
my third year of doctoral study in the Psychology and Social Intervention Program at New York
University. The Psychology and Social Intervention Program focuses on the practical application
of psychological research to social issues and potential policy solutions. For example, professors
and students in the program conduct research on projects such as an innovative conditional cash
transfer antipoverty program or a school-based intervention targeting children’s social and
emotional skills. Like typical U.S. doctoral programs, the Psychology and Social Intervention
Program is five years in duration and is structured so that during the first three years students are
involved in three primary tasks: 1) completing coursework requirements and comprehensive
exams; 2) contributing to faculty research projects; and 3) conducting independent research.
In line with the structure of the program, this year I completed all of my coursework and
my comprehensive exams. Through my coursework I gained a foundation in psychological
theory and content as well as in methodology and statistics to equip me to rigorously answer
important questions about child development in order to inform social policy. I also completed
my comprehensive methods exam, and am on track to complete my comprehensive theoretical
exam, which requires writing a theoretical paper. In my theoretical paper I combine sociological,
economic and psychological theory to understand the pathways by which maternal education
influences children’s academic outcomes.
As well as completing these program requirements, I have been centrally engaged with
two different faculty research projects. First, I have continued work on a longitudinal study of
diverse adolescents’ development. So far this year we have submitted two publications based on
this work. I am the first author on a publication exploring adolescents’ perceptions of racial/
ethnic discrimination and the relationship of discrimination to their academic engagement and I
am a co-author on a publication exploring how parent involvement relates to adolescents
academic engagement during middle school. I am currently involved in two additional
publications based on this work, which also focus on exploring influences on adolescents’
academic engagement. We presented preliminary analyses for one of these publications at the
biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development in Seattle in April. This year
I also began work with an interdisciplinary team of researchers on a parenting intervention study
known as the School Reform and Beyond Project (SRB). SRB is an innovative intervention that
utilizes the pediatric primary care platform to enhance positive parenting practices to promote
school readiness in very young children in low-income families. So far I have assisted with
developing (successful) grant proposals and policy briefs for the project, as well as evaluating a
pilot of the intervention. I will continue working on this project in my remaining years of
doctoral training. One of my largest achievements in relation to this work was receiving a
substantial fellowship – the NYU-Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training (PIRT)
Fellowship in Education Sciences – to support my work on this project during 2014.
Finally, I have continued to develop my own research projects, which will form the basis
of my dissertation research. This research focuses on exploring how increases in maternal
education influence children’s outcomes. The strong link between maternal education and
children’s outcomes is one of the most well-established findings in developmental psychology
(Magnuson, 2007; Sirin, 2005); however, how increases in maternal education affect children’s
outcomes is less clear. This question is important for two main reasons. First, maternal education
is often considered a proxy for the effects of socioeconomic status, but research suggests that
maternal education has unique effects on children’s developmental outcomes (Reardon, 2011).
Examining changes in maternal education can help to illuminate the causal relationship between
maternal education and children’s outcomes. Second, non-traditional educational pathways are
becoming more common, with mothers increasingly returning to school after the birth of their
children. For instance, in the U.S., 23% of college undergraduates had children in 2008
(Goldrick-Rab & Sorenson, 2010). Understanding the implications of this societal change is
therefore timely. My work in this area currently takes two forms. First, I am involved in
evaluating a pilot dual-generation education program, which provides education and training to
mothers with children enrolled in Head Start (a public early childhood education program) in a
low-income area of Manhattan. Second, I conduct secondary data analysis to examine the effects
of naturally occurring increases in maternal education on young children’s developmental
outcomes. I have just completed one publication exploring the effects of changes in maternal
education on children’s cognitive and behavioral outcomes and another publication exploring the
possible changes in parenting that may accompany increases in maternal education is planned. I
also presented research based off this work at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on
Child Development in Seattle as well as at the annual Cross-University Collaborative Mentoring
Conference in New York City.
Although work keeps me busy, I definitely make the most of living in New York City. I
frequently attend the theatre, art openings and concerts. Some personal highlights of the year
include spending a day at Storm King, a contemporary sculpture park in upstate New York that
is an art lover’s Disney World, flying a (free!) private plane to an island off the Hamptons for the
weekend, and countless memorable meals with friends in New York City’s many incredible
restaurants. Studying at New York University is truly an enriching experience, and I would like
to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women for
supporting my studies.