Table 7 – Dr. Margaret O’Brien Caughy

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Integrative Statement

Biography:
Dr. Margaret O’Brien Caughy is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Family Health Disparities in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Georgia. Dr. Caughy’s research combines the unique perspectives of developmental science, epidemiology, and public health in studying the contexts of risk and resilience affecting young children. She is particularly interested in race/ethnic disparities in health and development and how these disparities can be understood within the unique ecological niches of ethnic minority families. Dr. Caughy has been the principal investigator of several studies focused on how inequities in neighborhood structural characteristics and social processes affect the cognitive development, socioemotional functioning, and early academic achievement of young children in diverse race/ethnic groups. Another theme of her research has been methodological, specifically methods related to measuring neighborhood context and the utilization of these measures in models explaining child developmental competence using multilevel and structural equations modeling methods. Her current research program, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development, is focused on how family contexts including mothers’ and fathers’ parenting as well as family ethnic racial socialization practices shape the self-regulation development, language development, and academic achievement of low-income African American and Latino children from early childhood into middle school.

Further reading:
• Caughy, M. O., Mills, B. A., Brinkley, D., & Owen, M. T. (2018). Behavioral self-regulation, early academic achievement, and the effectiveness of urban schools among low-income ethnic minority children. American Journal of Community Psychology, 61 (3-4), 372-385. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12242
• Caughy, M.O., Mills, B., Owen, M.T., Dyer, N., & Oshri, A. (2017). Ethnic differences in mothering qualities and relations to academic achievement. Journal of Family Psychology, 31 (7), 855-866. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000334 [PMCID PMC28627911]

Author

• Margaret Caughy, University of Georgia
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