The Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families serves as a catalyst for cross-disciplinary research on children, youth, and families at the University of Arizona. Our research initiatives address questions important to the development and well-being of contemporary children, youth, and families, with the goal of improving basic understanding to enhance the lives of the people of Arizona and the world.
What We Do
We conduct research on children, youth, and families through cross-disciplinary initiatives that engage experienced and emerging scholars in active collaboration. Our initiatives include research on child and adolescent development, parenting, close relationships, and family life across the lifespan. We translate the results of our research for community application and public use.
Our Vision
We envision communities that support and value children, youth, and families, and in which the highest-quality research is brought-to-bear on issues important to them. We will be a premier research institution on children, youth, and families.
With the collaboration and support of affiliated University faculty, the The McClelland Institute currently focuses on four substantive areas for research.
Our Research Initiatives
Youth Development and Resilience
The initiative takes three approaches to understanding, predicting, and preventing adolescent health risk: (1) investigation of family and relationship dynamics that affect and provide the contexts for adolescent decision-making or risk-taking, (2) investigation of psychobiological mechanisms involved in behavior in adolescence, (3) development and implementation of prevention/intervention strategies for youth who are marginalized or living in high-risk settings.
Early Childhood: Typical & Atypical Development
This research initiative focuses on prevention, early intervention, risk and resilience in young children (ages birth to five) with particular attention to social-emotional well- being, positive parent-child relationships, as well as evidence-based early interventions for at-risk children and those with disabilities.
Fathers, Parenting, and Families
The vision for this initiative is a set of shared research questions in the domain of fathers, parenting, and families. The current focus is on men’s reproductive strategies (investments in fathering, investments in romantic relationships, trade-offs between them) – and how these strategies guide the development of children’s reproductive strategies (e.g., timing of puberty, age at sexual debut, sexual risk behaviors, parental behavior).
Mechanisms of Emotion, Social Relationships, and Health
This initiative seeks to promote deeper understandings of the complex interplay between social processes, biological systems and mental and physical health outcomes.
Latino Families
The overall goal of this initiative is to further stimulate research that contributes to “Learning from Latinos”. This initiative supports collaborative work focused on methods and theory that can advance our understanding in the following four areas: (1) Healthy and positive development of Latino children and youth (2) Latino family contexts for parenting and socialization (3) Neighborhood and community contexts for development of Latino families (4) Health and educational paradoxes and disparities.
