Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor in Child Development and Education,
Columbia University

Families and policies matter: how to enhance the well-being of children in poverty

Abstract

Links:

School Readiness: Closing Racial and Ethnic Gaps

Racial and Ethnic Gaps in School Readiness (Book Chapter) (PDF)

National Center for Children and Families Website

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education at Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. She co-directs the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College and the Institute for Child and Family Policy at Columbia University.

Dr. Brooks-Gunn's specialty is policy-oriented research focusing on family and community influences upon the development of children and youth. She also designs and evaluates interventions aimed at enhancing the well-being of children living in poverty and associated conditions. Her books on these topics include Consequences of growing up poor (1997); Escape from poverty: What makes a difference for children? (1995); Adolescent mothers in later life (1987); and Neighborhood poverty (1997): Context and consequences for children.

She also conducts research on transitional periods focusing on school, family and biological transitions in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. She is interested in the factors that contribute to positive and negative outcomes, and changes in well-being over these years. Her books on these topics include, He and she: How children develop their sex role identity (1979); Social cognition and the acquisition of self (1979); Girls at puberty: Biological and psychosocial perspectives (1983); and Conflict and cohesion in families: Causes and consequences (1999). In addition, she is the author of over 450 published articles.

Dr. Brooks-Gunn has been the recipient of several awards; the Society for Research in Child Development's award for distinguished contributions to public policy for children (2005), she has been elected Margaret Mead Fellow by the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2004) and has received the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (2002) for outstanding contributions to the area of applied psychological research from the American Psychological Society. She was honored with the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy Award (2001) from the American Psychological Association and has also received the John B. Hill Award from the Society for Research on Adolescence for her life-time contribution to research on adolescence (1996).

Barbara Pocock
Director of the Centre for Work+Life, University of South Australia

Governing work life intersections in Australia over the life course: policy and prospects

Abstract

Professor Barbara Pocock is Director of the Centre for Work+Life, at the University of South Australia. Barbara has been researching work, employment and industrial relations for twenty-five years. Her main areas of study have been work, employment relations, unions, inequality and vocational education. She was initially trained as an economist. She has worked in many jobs - advising politicians, on farms, in unions, for governments and as a mother.
Her books include

• The Labour Market Ate my Babies: Work, Children and a Sustainable Future. (2006)
• The Work/Life Collision (2003)
• Strife; Sex and Politics in Labour Unions (edited) (1997)
• Demanding Skill: Women and Technical Education in Australia (1988).

Fiona Williams
Professor of Social Policy, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds

Shifting child-care policies and practices in Western Europe: is there a case for developing a global ethic of care?

Abstract