Developmental Contexts in Middle Childhood: Bridges to Adolescence and Adulthood

Aletha C. Huston is Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Child Development at the University of Texas, Austin. She is a developmental psychologist who specializes in understanding the effects of poverty on children and the impact of child care and income support policies on children's development. She is a Principal Investigator in the New Hope Project, a study of the effects on children and families of parents' participation in a work-based program to reduce poverty, and collaborator in the Next Generation Project. She was a member of the MacArthur Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood and an Investigator for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. She is President of the Society for Research in Child Development and Past President of the Division of Developmental Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Marika N. Ripke is the Director of Hawaii Kids Count and an affiliate faculty member of the Center on the Family at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Her research specializes on the effects of poverty on children and the impact of out-of-school activities on child and youth development. As director of Hawaii Kids Count, she assesses (and advocates for) the well-being of Hawaii's children and families by monitoring various health, economic and educational indicators over time. She directs the data collection and analysis of a study examining the quality and availability of education and health supports for Native Hawaiian families and their young children. She holds a governmental position as a voting member of the State of Hawaii's Commission on Fatherhood. Her publications have appeared in the Handbook of Child Psychology and in such scholarly journals as Developmental Psychology, the Review of Research in Education and New Directions in Youth Development.