My work examines aggressive elementary school children who are well-accepted by their peers at school. Doctoral students whom I advise and collaborate with are fully funded and have the opportunity to work on thee completed investigations and one ongoing research project in the schools:

(1) Classroom Quality Study. This project, funded by the William T. Grant and Spencer Foundations, responds to a call to improve how classroom quality is measured by child development researchers. Beginning in Fall 2008 and extending into Spring 2010, we are assessing how features of classroom peer ecologies relate to youth aggression, achievement, and school relatedness. We aim to determine how teacher practices can best shape classroom peer ecologies to be quality learning environments. This new investigation is being conducted in collaboration with Profs. Scott Gest and Thomas Farmer at the Pennsylvania State University, and will include at least six schools and 36 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade classrooms throughout east central Illinois.

(2) Popularity of Bullying Study. In this project we are examining peer, teacher, and self reports of bullying and aggression, social status, and social relationships among 600 3rd and 4th grade children sampled from diverse and multicultural Central Illinois schools. We have three assessments of children, their teachers, and selected school record information over the 4th and 5th grades. This project is funded by small grants from the Spencer Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

(3) School Friendship Study. This project tracked two cohorts of 350 children (700 total) biannually from the spring of 3rd grade to the fall of 6th grade with peer, teacher, and self reports of social status, aggression, and other social-personality characteristics. We are analyzing these data collaboratively with investigative teams led by Ruth Pearl and Richard Van Acker at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Tom Farmer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and myself. I am particularly interested in whether the status-aggression connection grows stronger over development. This project was funded by the US Department of Education from 1997-2001.

(4) Status and Aggression Study. This project features 500 4th-5th grade children from suburban elementary schools in Central Illinois for whom behavioral and affiliative reports were obtained in fall and spring. We are examining differences in social status between boys who bully male versus female victims. We are also comparing different techniques and methodologies for revealing the social structure of children's peer relationships at school.

The goal of my work is to understand the socialization and development of aggressive behavior, and eventually to devise interventions that use children's existing social networks to reduce problem behavior in schools.