Doctoral student Sebastián Dueñas (Emory University), supervised by Dr. Craig A. Hadley, will investigate how experiencing poverty in childhood affects young people's aspirations for the future. Other research using life history theory has found that childhood experiences of adversity and uncertainty impact developmental trajectories and aspirations, which in turn affect educational attainment. This study will contribute to and extend these findings by looking at the proximate pathways through which adversity impacts human capital aspirations.
The study will be carried out in Chile where the researcher will compare two rural peasant populations of low socio-economic status: an ethnically Mapuche (Chile's largest indigenous minority group) community and a non-Mapuche community. The comparative research design will allow him to assess how ethnic and cultural differences affect the relationship between adversity and human capital aspirations, as well as variability in coping strategies employed to mitigate adversity. He will collect a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to test hypothesized relationships, focusing much of the investigation on a random sample of early-adolescents.
This project contributes to social scientific research that has highlighted the role of social class, minority status, and youth culture in shaping adolescents' future outlook and aspirations. This study explores these issues in rural communities in a developing country, whereas most previous work on the effect of childhood uncertainty on development has been carried out in urban settings in developed nations. In addition, by focusing on coping strategies employed by the young people themselves, the project will spotlight young people as potentially active agents in mitigating uncertainty and limiting the negative impact of adversity on life course outcomes.
Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.
