Biography

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education, and a University Professor at New York University. He conducts research on the effects of programs and policies related to early childhood development, immigration and poverty on child and youth development. He co-directs (with Larry Aber) the Global TIES for Children Center at New York University. He is aso Co-Chair of the Thematic Network on Early Childhood Development and Education (i.e., for the area of Sustainable Development Goal, or SDG 4) of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the research network advising the Secretary-General on the development and implementation of the global SDGs. He serves on the boards of trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development, and the advisory boards of the Early Childhood Program of the Open Society Foundations and the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report.

Deborah J. Johnson is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and the Interim Director of the Diversity Research Network at Michigan State University. Her research explores racially and culturally related development, parental racial socialization and coping, and cultural adjustment from early childhood through emerging adulthood, among domestic, immigrant and international children and youth. She holds a deep interest in child right’s perspectives and vulnerable children globally emphasizing themes of resilience, cultural adjustment and identity transformation. In her longitudinal study of Sudanese refugees who entered the US as unaccompanied children, themes of resilience including ongoing adjustment, identity, schooling and sense of purpose have been explored extensively. Recent research address gender and interpersonal violence across developmental periods. Other collaborations investigate the relations among identity and racial socialization in contexts where social history and current public policy impact the experience of oppression, these researches include Indigenous Australians and Roma youth. In Western Australia, Dr. Johnson has served as adjunct professor at Murdoch University, a fellow at the Telethon Institute for Child Health and Research, Research Council for the Pindi Pindi Aboriginal Research Center and was honored with a Raine Fellowship. She has published over 75 articles, books and monographs. Her two most recent books include, Slaughter-Defoe, D. T., Stevenson, H., Arrington, E., & Johnson, D.J. (Eds.) (2011). Black Educational Choice in a Climate of School Reform: Consequences for K-12 Student Learning and Development. Westport, CT: Praegar Press. Deborah J. Johnson, DeBrenna Agbényiga, & Robert Hitchcock (Eds.). (2013). Vulnerable Children: Global Challenges in Education, Health, Well-Being, and Child Rights. New York, NY: Springer.

Selcuk R. Sirin is the J. K. Javits Professor at New York University. Dr. Sirin studies the lives of marginalized children and youth and ways to increase professionals’ ability to better serve their needs. His recent research focuses on immigrant children in New York, Muslim youth in the US, and refugee children in Turkey and Norway. His work was published in top journals, such as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Review of Educational Research, and Pediatrics. He is also the author of multiple books in English and Turkish, including Turkey at the Crossroad: Freedom or Misery (2015) and Muslim American Youth (2008). He is the recipient of the Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Child Development for his work on immigrant children, and the Review of Research Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Sirin currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences Committee on Supporting the Parents of Young Children.

Carly Tubbs Dolan is the Associate Director for Programs in Conflict-Affected Countries at New York University’s Global TIES for Children Center. She helped design and launch a new initiative between TIES and the International Rescue Committee, “Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action”, aimed at improving the quality of education and children’s development in crisis-affected countries. Carly’s research is supported by the Spencer Foundation, DfID-ESRC, and Dubai Cares, and it focuses on two areas of inquiry in crisis contexts: 1) understanding how, for whom, and under what conditions interventions to improve access to and quality of education work; and 2) harnessing technology and user-centered design principles to develop rigorous, reliable, and community-driven research methodologies. Carly has collaborated with the World Bank, Human Rights Watch, the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research. Carly is an advanced doctoral student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program at NYU Steinhardt.

Lisseth Rojas-Flores is an associate professor in the Department of Marriage and Family of the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Dr. Rojas-Flores’s teaching, research, and scholarship are deeply informed by culture and context, and she takes a special interest in addressing the interrelationships between family, mental health, and social justice. Dr. Rojas-Flores is particularly interested in child and family well-being and community-based intervention and prevention. With funding from the Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars Program, Dr. Rojas-Flores is examining the impact of immigration enforcement on Latino citizen–children’s psychological and academic well-being in the US. In an international context, she is conducting collaborative research looking at the impact of community violence and trauma on adolescents, parents, and teachers living in El Salvador. Most recently, Dr. Rojas-Flores began to examine communities in situations of internal displacement in Colombia and the role that faith leaders play in facilitating and supporting their integration and flourishing. As a bilingual/bicultural clinical psychologist, she also provides clinical assessments to Central American unaccompanied minors. Her work has been published in journals such as Psychological Trauma, International Perspectives of Psychology, and Anxiety, Stress, & Coping: An International Journal.

2-052 - Refugees from the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia: Developmental Status and Global and National Policy Implications

Session Type: Invited SRCD Salon

Integrative Statement

The number of people involuntarily displaced from their homes worldwide is currently at historical unprecedented levels (60 million). Close to one half of this number are children and youth. The largest single stream is of Syrian refugees (4 million). This panel will focus on recent studies of the well-being, learning and development of refugee children and adolescents from a global perspective, with data from Sudanese refugees in the United States; Syrian refugees in Turkey and Lebanon; and unaccompanied youth from Latin America in the United States. Each of these studies incorporates both developmental data as well as information on the potential of partnerships between researchers and local governments, host governments, and NGO’s to improve the developmental potential of this severely at-risk group. (Co-sponsored by the Asian Caucus, Black Caucus, and Latino Caucus of SRCD)

Sub Unit

• Invited Program on Global Change & Child Development

Moderator

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University

Panelists

• Deborah J. Johnson, Michigan State University

• Selcuk R. Sirin, New York University

• Carly Tubbs Dolan, New York University

• Lisseth Rojas-Flores, Fuller Theological Seminary