Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago

Title and Précis:

Youth as Social Weathervanes: Building the Developmental Foundations for Political Pluralism with Catholic Participation

     This project will shed light on the role of youth development in the process of democratization, with a special focus on its role in building the foundations for political pluralism and on the question of how Catholic thought and institutional development provides a context for these processes. Because they are engaged in the process of their own identity development, youth function as social weathervanes to gauge the ways in which collective identity and political culture are shifting. This project will rely on reviews of existing research literature, and the project director’s prior data analysis, supplemented by secondary data analysis. The project will provide a basis for understanding youth involvement in the process of democratization, building upon the Catholic political analyses of John Courtney Murray and Bernard Häring.

Biography:

     Dr. James Garbarino holds the Maude C. Clarke Chair in Humanistic Psychology and was founding Director of the Center for the Human Rights of Children at Loyola University Chicago. Previously he was the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development and Co-Director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University. He earned his Doctoral degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University in 1973. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and has served as consultant to a wide range of organizations, including the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse, the National Institute for Mental Health, the American Medical Association, the National Black Child Development Institute, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the FBI.