This Children's Research Initiative Center will bring together investigators from 20 multi-disciplinary national and international longitudinal projects to work collaboratively on analyses aimed at resolving some of the key issues about how children's environment affects their development during middle childhood. Specifically, the Center will focus on disentangling the complexity of influences on children as they develop through adolescence, into adulthood, and even into rearing their own children. The investigators will address common issues of importance with their data using state-of-the-art analysis techniques. The Center will focus on four specific questions: 1) Is middle childhood a particularly sensitive time during which attitudes, beliefs, and views of the self crystallize and thus determine later life success (e.g., occupational, educational, relationship success) or difficulty (e.g., aggressive behavior, depression)? 2) Which childhood influences (e.g., family, school, peer) matter the most for positive and negative adolescent and adult outcomes, and at what points in time do they have the most influence? 3) Do personal characteristics of the child (e.g., temperament, intelligence, gender of the child) influence the impact of family, school, and peer influences in predicting later life outcomes? 4) How similar are parents and their children in positive behaviors (e.g., social skills, intellectual achievement) and negative behaviors (e.g., aggression), and how do family, peer, and school influences affect these cross-generational similarities and differences?
Although the influences studied in any one project are limited, taken together the many projects participating in this Center can examine a wide range of influences during childhood. In addition, because of the breadth of these longitudinal projects, the Center's efforts will foster new methodological and statistical approaches. The Center will promote innovative, multi-disciplinary training of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students through courses, workshops, and collaborative research experiences. The findings are expected to lead to the creation of effective interventions for improving life outcomes by identifying specific factors that have powerful short- and long-term influences on development. Analyses will address the effects of family, peer, school, neighborhood, and media influences on socially and clinically important outcomes such as school success/failure, depression, aggression/delinquency, and relationship success. Finally, in partnership with school systems, community groups, and mental health agencies, the Center will move towards design and implementation of scientifically based interventions to reduce the incidence of these problems and to promote life success.
