Stephanie M. Jones is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Fordham University. Her research activities and interests focus on the nature and structure of social and emotional problems and competencies in both early childhood and adolescence. Her work concentrates in particular on the impact of broad ecological risks, such as poverty and exposure to community violence, on the more proximal determinants of social-emotional problems and competencies in early childhood, including parenting, emotion regulation and skills, and social cognitive attributions. Dr Jones’ work also addresses the program and policy applications of her research. As Co-Investigator with J. Lawrence Aber and Joshua Brown, of the Institute for Education Sciences funded evaluation of the 4Rs Program, a conflict resolution and literacy program for elementary school children, she is directing her work to programs designed to address aggressive and violent behavior indirectly, via the promotion of broad social and emotional competencies. She is also a Co-Investigator on the Chicago School Readiness project with Dr. Cybele Raver enabling her to investigate similar issues with a preschool population. In addition, she has written on a number of policy topics. In particular, she has written a scholarly book on the case for a universal pre-kindergarten program in the United States with Edward Zigler and Walter Gilliam, both of Yale University. Dr. Jones has worked on a number of longitudinal studies of child and youth development. In particular she has studied (1) the impact of family poverty, ecological risks, and parenting on infant toddler social and emotional development as part of the Connecticut Early Development Project; (2) the impact of individual- and neighborhood-level poverty and exposure to violence on youth aggression and psychopathology as part of the Adolescent Pathways Project and the Social and Health Assessment Project; and (3) the impact of a violence prevention curriculum on youth trajectories of aggression-related social cognitive skills and aggressive behaviors as part of the process and outcome evaluation of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program.
