Assistant Professor of Family Studies
(Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University)

Research Interests
Academic achievement, school engagement, school readiness, child and adolescent development, parent-child relationships, low income and/or ethnic minority families

Contact Information
Fowler Memorial House, Room 203
Purdue University
1200 W. State St.
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055

Phone: (765) 496-1762
Fax: (765) 494-0503

E-mail: adottere@purdue.edu

Biography
Representative Publications
Education
Courses Recently Taught
Honors
Professional Service

Biography

I joined the Purdue faculty in the Fall of 2008, after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I received my Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State in 2006.

My research is grounded in developmental and ecological approaches to the study of children’s and adolescents’ school experiences and academic achievement. I am particularly interested in gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic variations in school engagement and academic achievement, with attention to the role that families play in parenting and socialization. For example, I am currently comparing two models of family influence to examine racial disparities in children’s pre-academic knowledge. A related area of interest is in development and growth of children’s academic achievement over time and the use of the best methods to examine longitudinal models of process and change. I am currently using a multilevel modeling strategy to examine the extent to which early academic skills in pre-kindergarten are related to later academic achievement in early adolescence.

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Representative Publications

Dotterer, A. M., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A .C. (in press). The development and
   correlates of academic interests from childhood through adolescence.  Journal of
   Educational Psychology.

Dotterer, A. M., McHale, S.M., & Crouter, A.C. (2009). Sociocultural factors and
   school engagement among African American youth:  The roles of racial

   discrimination, racial socialization and ethnic identity. Applied Developmental

   Science, 13, 61-73.

McHale, S. M., Kim, J.Y., Dotterer, A. M., Crouter, A. C. & Booth, A. (2009). The
   Development of Gendered Interests and Personality Qualities from Middle
   Childhood through Adolescence: A Bio-Social Analysis. Child Development, 80,
   482-495.

Pungello, L., Iruka, I., Dotterer, A.M., Mills-Koonce, R., & Reznick, S. (2009). The
   effects of income, race, and sensitive and harsh parenting on receptive and
   expressive language development in early childhood.  Developmental Psychology,
   45, 544-557.

McHale, S. M., Dotterer, A. M., & Kim, J.Y. ( 2009 ). An ecological perspective on
   the media and youth development. American Behavioral Scientist, 52, 1186-1203.

Dotterer, A.M., Hoffman, L., Crouter, A.C., & McHale, S.M. (2008). Bi-directional links
   between parent-adolescent relationships and adolescents’ academic achievement.
   Journal of Family Issues 29, 762-779.

Dotterer, A.M., McHale, S.M., & Crouter, A.C. (2007). Implications of out-of-school
   activities and school engagement in African American adolescents. Journal of
   Youth and Adolescence, 4, 391-401.

McHale, S.M, Crouter, A.C., Kim, J., Burton, L., Davis, K., Dotterer, A.M., & Swanson,
   D.P. (2006). Mothers’ and fathers’ racial socialization in African American families: 
   Inter-parental linkages and implications for offspring.  Child Development, 77,
   1387-1402.

Book Chapters

Dotterer, A.M., Burchinal, M., Bryant, D., Early, D., & Pianta, R. (in press). Comparing
   universal and targeted pre-K programs. In R. Pianta & C. Howes (Eds.), The
   promise of pre-kindergarten. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc.

Fingerman, K.L., Whiteman, S.D., & Dotterer, A.M. (in press). Mother-child
   relationships in adolescence and adulthood. In H.T. Reis & S.K. Sprecher (Eds.),
   Encyclopedia of human relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Education

• Ph.D., 2006, Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University

• M.A., 2002, Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University

• B.A., 2000, Psychology, Wayne State University

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Courses Recently Taught

CDFS 301: Families in a Multicultural Society
CDFS 432: Stress Points in Contemporary Families
CDFS 590: Adolescent Development

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Honors

2007               NICHD Summer Training Institute in Applied Child and Adolescent Development,
                      June 24-29, 2007, Potomac, Maryland

2006 – 2008    Post-Doctoral Research Training Fellowship in Education Sciences at FPG, funded by
                      the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

2005 – 2006    Fisher Fellowship, Pennsylvania State University

2004 – 2005    Fellow in the Center for Work and Family Research, Pennsylvania State University

1998 – 2000    National Institute of Mental Health, Career Opportunities in Research Fellowship,
                      Wayne State University

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Professional Service

Editorial Board
2007-present:  Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Ad hoc reviewer
Developmental Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Sex Roles

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