Pamela A Morris
Biographic Data
| ID | 159864 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pamela A Morris |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pamela A |
| FAMILY NAME | Morris |
| SIGNATURE | MORRIS P A |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 291 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
An exploration of the domain specificity of maternal sensitivity among a diverse sample in the infancy period
Maternal sensitivity during an observed mother–child clean-up task at 18 months and maternal sensitivity during an observed mother–child free-play task at 18 months were tested as independent predictors of child internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, social competence, and language development at 24 months. Participants (n = 292 mothers) were recruited between 2015 and 2017, and were low-income (mean annual income = $19,136) and racially…
Collateral benefits from a school‐readiness intervention on breastfeeding
This study evaluated the collateral, or unanticipated, impacts of Smart Beginnings (SB), a two-site, tiered intervention designed to promote responsive parenting and school readiness, on breastfeeding intensity in a low-income sample. Impact analyses for the SB intervention were conducted using an intent-to-treat design leveraging a two-arm random assignment structure. Mothers assigned to the SB intervention group were more than three times more …
Variations in Pre-Kindergarten Classroom Quality Ratings across the School Year
Many school districts face the empirical challenge of monitoring program quality to assure that all children experience pre-K environments that foster early learning and development. Factors that are exogenous to classrooms (such as evaluation timing) may play a role in estimates of program quality and yet are not fully understood. This paper examines the role of timing in pre-K classroom quality as it was observed in practice by one of the large…
Different settings, different patterns of impacts
Income Level and Volatility by Children's Race and Hispanic Ethnicity
Objective: This study documents how income dynamics during childhood differ across racial/ethnic groups and among Hispanics by nativity, citizenship, and the English-language proficiency of households.Background: Income volatility has emerged as a distinct form of economic disadvantage that can impact family life and child well-being. Yet little is understood about how income volatility is stratified by race and ethnicity.Method: Using longitudin…
Neighborhood economic disadvantage and children's cognitive and social-emotional development
Intrayear Household Income Dynamics and Adolescent School Behavior
Economic life for most American households is quite dynamic. Such income instability is an understudied aspect of households’ economic contexts that may have distinct consequences for children. We examine the empirical relationship between household income instability, as measured by intrayear income change, and adolescent school behavior outcomes using a nationally representative sample of households with adolescents from the Survey of Income an…
Patterns of Time Use Among Low-Income Urban Minority Adolescents and Associations with Academic Outcomes and Problem Behaviors
The Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children's Academic Outcomes
The importance of maternal education for children's academic outcomes is widely recognized, and yet the multiple potential mechanisms that explain this relationship are underexplored. The authors integrate theories of human, cultural, and social capital with 2 developmental psychology theories-bioecological theory and developmental niche theory-to draw attention to how maternal education may influence children's academic outcomes through a range …
The Role of Classroom-Level Child Behavior Problems in Predicting Preschool Teacher Stress and Classroom Emotional Climate
Research Findings: Despite the abundance of research suggesting that preschool classroom quality influences children's social-emotional development, the equally important and related question of how characteristics of children enrolled in a classroom influence classroom quality has rarely been addressed. The current article focuses on this question while also considering teacher stress as a mediator of the relationship between child behavior prob…
Comparing state policy approaches to early care and education quality
Drawing on psychological theory to understand and improve antipoverty policies
Increasingly, psychological theory and research are used to help design and guide social policy efforts. One particular antipoverty policy that is gaining popularity is conditional cash transfers (CCTs), where cash is transferred to needy households, conditioned on their making prestipulated investments in their children’s health and education. CCTs have been rigorously evaluated and implemented as policy by governments in several countries. Outs…
Getting a job is only half the battle
This study uses data from an experimental employment program and instrumental variables (IV) estimation to examine the effects of maternal job loss on child classroom behavior. Random assignment to the treatment at one of three program sites is an exogenous predictor of employment patterns. Cross-site variation in treatment-control differences is used to identify the effects of employment levels and transitions. Under certain assumptions, this me…
Does money really matter? Estimating impacts of family income on young children's achievement with data from random-assignment experiments
Social scientists do not agree on the size and nature of the causal impacts of parental income on children's achievement. We revisit this issue using a set of welfare and antipoverty experiments conducted in the 1990s. We utilize an instrumental variables strategy to leverage the variation in income and achievement that arises from random assignment to the treatment group to estimate the causal effect of income on child achievement. Our estimates…
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Effects of Welfare Policies on Early School Readiness and Later Achievement
This study examined whether the effects of employment-based policies on children's math and reading achievement differed for African American, Latino and Caucasian children of welfare receiving parents, and if so, why. Two kinds of employment policies were examined: education-first programs with an emphasis on adult education and job training; and work-first programs with an emphasis on immediate employment. With data from two- and five-year foll…
Meeting the basic needs of children
Losing the safety net
The authors examined the effects of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), one of the first welfare reform initiatives to include a time limit on the receipt of federal cash assistance with other welfare requirements, on single-mother welfare-receiving families. Using a regression-based subgroup approach, they identified a group of families who were at risk of reaching the welfare time limit and subsequently assessed the experimental effects …
Welfare Program Implementation and Parents’ Depression
This study examines how the frontline practices in welfare offices explain variation in program impacts on parents' depression. The study uses data from four large-scale experimental studies and conducts multilevel statistical modeling on 6,761 families in 22 local welfare offices. Analyses examine the ways that two program implementation practices (emphasis on quick job entry and personal client attention) are associated with program impacts on …
From statistical associations to causation
In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is …
The Bioecological Model of Human Development
In this chapter, we undertake to present the ecological model of human development that has been introduced in a prior edition of this Handbook. The bioecological model is an evolving theoretical system for the scientific study of human development over time. The model presented in this chapter represents major theoretical innovations from the 1983 chapter in both form and content. The new model is not a paradigm shift, but rather represents a tr…
The Effects of Time Limits and Make-Work-Pay Strategies on the Well-Being of Children
Identifying the Effects of Income on Children's Development Using Experimental Data
Prior research suggests that poverty can be detrimental to low-income children's development. Is this relation capturing the effects of poverty or the effects of other characteristics of low-income families associated with poverty? Can low-income children benefit from increases in income? In this paper, an instrumental variables estimation strategy is used with data on nearly 900 children from a random assignment evaluation of a pilot welfare ref…
Does money really matter? Estimating impacts of family income on young children's achievement with data from random-assignment experiments
Social scientists do not agree on the size and nature of the causal impacts of parental income on children's achievement. We revisit this issue using a set of welfare and antipoverty experiments conducted in the 1990s. We utilize an instrumental variables strategy to leverage the variation in income and achievement that arises from random assignment to the treatment group to estimate the causal effect of income on child achievement. Our estimates…
From statistical associations to causation
In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is …
The Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children's Academic Outcomes
The importance of maternal education for children's academic outcomes is widely recognized, and yet the multiple potential mechanisms that explain this relationship are underexplored. The authors integrate theories of human, cultural, and social capital with 2 developmental psychology theories-bioecological theory and developmental niche theory-to draw attention to how maternal education may influence children's academic outcomes through a range …
Intrayear Household Income Dynamics and Adolescent School Behavior
Economic life for most American households is quite dynamic. Such income instability is an understudied aspect of households’ economic contexts that may have distinct consequences for children. We examine the empirical relationship between household income instability, as measured by intrayear income change, and adolescent school behavior outcomes using a nationally representative sample of households with adolescents from the Survey of Income an…
Identifying the Effects of Income on Children's Development Using Experimental Data
Prior research suggests that poverty can be detrimental to low-income children's development. Is this relation capturing the effects of poverty or the effects of other characteristics of low-income families associated with poverty? Can low-income children benefit from increases in income? In this paper, an instrumental variables estimation strategy is used with data on nearly 900 children from a random assignment evaluation of a pilot welfare ref…
Neighborhood economic disadvantage and children's cognitive and social-emotional development
Getting a job is only half the battle
This study uses data from an experimental employment program and instrumental variables (IV) estimation to examine the effects of maternal job loss on child classroom behavior. Random assignment to the treatment at one of three program sites is an exogenous predictor of employment patterns. Cross-site variation in treatment-control differences is used to identify the effects of employment levels and transitions. Under certain assumptions, this me…
Income Level and Volatility by Children's Race and Hispanic Ethnicity
Objective: This study documents how income dynamics during childhood differ across racial/ethnic groups and among Hispanics by nativity, citizenship, and the English-language proficiency of households.Background: Income volatility has emerged as a distinct form of economic disadvantage that can impact family life and child well-being. Yet little is understood about how income volatility is stratified by race and ethnicity.Method: Using longitudin…
Welfare Program Implementation and Parents’ Depression
This study examines how the frontline practices in welfare offices explain variation in program impacts on parents' depression. The study uses data from four large-scale experimental studies and conducts multilevel statistical modeling on 6,761 families in 22 local welfare offices. Analyses examine the ways that two program implementation practices (emphasis on quick job entry and personal client attention) are associated with program impacts on …
The Effects of Time Limits and Make-Work-Pay Strategies on the Well-Being of Children
Meeting the basic needs of children
Drawing on psychological theory to understand and improve antipoverty policies
Increasingly, psychological theory and research are used to help design and guide social policy efforts. One particular antipoverty policy that is gaining popularity is conditional cash transfers (CCTs), where cash is transferred to needy households, conditioned on their making prestipulated investments in their children’s health and education. CCTs have been rigorously evaluated and implemented as policy by governments in several countries. Outs…
Losing the safety net
The authors examined the effects of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), one of the first welfare reform initiatives to include a time limit on the receipt of federal cash assistance with other welfare requirements, on single-mother welfare-receiving families. Using a regression-based subgroup approach, they identified a group of families who were at risk of reaching the welfare time limit and subsequently assessed the experimental effects …
Comparing state policy approaches to early care and education quality
Different settings, different patterns of impacts
Patterns of Time Use Among Low-Income Urban Minority Adolescents and Associations with Academic Outcomes and Problem Behaviors
The Effects of Time Limits and Make-Work-Pay Strategies on the Well-Being of Children
Identifying the Effects of Income on Children's Development Using Experimental Data
Prior research suggests that poverty can be detrimental to low-income children's development. Is this relation capturing the effects of poverty or the effects of other characteristics of low-income families associated with poverty? Can low-income children benefit from increases in income? In this paper, an instrumental variables estimation strategy is used with data on nearly 900 children from a random assignment evaluation of a pilot welfare ref…
The Bioecological Model of Human Development
In this chapter, we undertake to present the ecological model of human development that has been introduced in a prior edition of this Handbook. The bioecological model is an evolving theoretical system for the scientific study of human development over time. The model presented in this chapter represents major theoretical innovations from the 1983 chapter in both form and content. The new model is not a paradigm shift, but rather represents a tr…
Welfare Program Implementation and Parents’ Depression
This study examines how the frontline practices in welfare offices explain variation in program impacts on parents' depression. The study uses data from four large-scale experimental studies and conducts multilevel statistical modeling on 6,761 families in 22 local welfare offices. Analyses examine the ways that two program implementation practices (emphasis on quick job entry and personal client attention) are associated with program impacts on …
From statistical associations to causation
In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is …
Losing the safety net
The authors examined the effects of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), one of the first welfare reform initiatives to include a time limit on the receipt of federal cash assistance with other welfare requirements, on single-mother welfare-receiving families. Using a regression-based subgroup approach, they identified a group of families who were at risk of reaching the welfare time limit and subsequently assessed the experimental effects …
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Effects of Welfare Policies on Early School Readiness and Later Achievement
This study examined whether the effects of employment-based policies on children's math and reading achievement differed for African American, Latino and Caucasian children of welfare receiving parents, and if so, why. Two kinds of employment policies were examined: education-first programs with an emphasis on adult education and job training; and work-first programs with an emphasis on immediate employment. With data from two- and five-year foll…
Meeting the basic needs of children
Getting a job is only half the battle
This study uses data from an experimental employment program and instrumental variables (IV) estimation to examine the effects of maternal job loss on child classroom behavior. Random assignment to the treatment at one of three program sites is an exogenous predictor of employment patterns. Cross-site variation in treatment-control differences is used to identify the effects of employment levels and transitions. Under certain assumptions, this me…
Does money really matter? Estimating impacts of family income on young children's achievement with data from random-assignment experiments
Social scientists do not agree on the size and nature of the causal impacts of parental income on children's achievement. We revisit this issue using a set of welfare and antipoverty experiments conducted in the 1990s. We utilize an instrumental variables strategy to leverage the variation in income and achievement that arises from random assignment to the treatment group to estimate the causal effect of income on child achievement. Our estimates…
Drawing on psychological theory to understand and improve antipoverty policies
Increasingly, psychological theory and research are used to help design and guide social policy efforts. One particular antipoverty policy that is gaining popularity is conditional cash transfers (CCTs), where cash is transferred to needy households, conditioned on their making prestipulated investments in their children’s health and education. CCTs have been rigorously evaluated and implemented as policy by governments in several countries. Outs…
The Role of Classroom-Level Child Behavior Problems in Predicting Preschool Teacher Stress and Classroom Emotional Climate
Research Findings: Despite the abundance of research suggesting that preschool classroom quality influences children's social-emotional development, the equally important and related question of how characteristics of children enrolled in a classroom influence classroom quality has rarely been addressed. The current article focuses on this question while also considering teacher stress as a mediator of the relationship between child behavior prob…
Comparing state policy approaches to early care and education quality
Neighborhood economic disadvantage and children's cognitive and social-emotional development
Intrayear Household Income Dynamics and Adolescent School Behavior
Economic life for most American households is quite dynamic. Such income instability is an understudied aspect of households’ economic contexts that may have distinct consequences for children. We examine the empirical relationship between household income instability, as measured by intrayear income change, and adolescent school behavior outcomes using a nationally representative sample of households with adolescents from the Survey of Income an…
Patterns of Time Use Among Low-Income Urban Minority Adolescents and Associations with Academic Outcomes and Problem Behaviors
The Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children's Academic Outcomes
The importance of maternal education for children's academic outcomes is widely recognized, and yet the multiple potential mechanisms that explain this relationship are underexplored. The authors integrate theories of human, cultural, and social capital with 2 developmental psychology theories-bioecological theory and developmental niche theory-to draw attention to how maternal education may influence children's academic outcomes through a range …
Income Level and Volatility by Children's Race and Hispanic Ethnicity
Objective: This study documents how income dynamics during childhood differ across racial/ethnic groups and among Hispanics by nativity, citizenship, and the English-language proficiency of households.Background: Income volatility has emerged as a distinct form of economic disadvantage that can impact family life and child well-being. Yet little is understood about how income volatility is stratified by race and ethnicity.Method: Using longitudin…
Variations in Pre-Kindergarten Classroom Quality Ratings across the School Year
Many school districts face the empirical challenge of monitoring program quality to assure that all children experience pre-K environments that foster early learning and development. Factors that are exogenous to classrooms (such as evaluation timing) may play a role in estimates of program quality and yet are not fully understood. This paper examines the role of timing in pre-K classroom quality as it was observed in practice by one of the large…
Different settings, different patterns of impacts
Collateral benefits from a school‐readiness intervention on breastfeeding
This study evaluated the collateral, or unanticipated, impacts of Smart Beginnings (SB), a two-site, tiered intervention designed to promote responsive parenting and school readiness, on breastfeeding intensity in a low-income sample. Impact analyses for the SB intervention were conducted using an intent-to-treat design leveraging a two-arm random assignment structure. Mothers assigned to the SB intervention group were more than three times more …
An exploration of the domain specificity of maternal sensitivity among a diverse sample in the infancy period
Maternal sensitivity during an observed mother–child clean-up task at 18 months and maternal sensitivity during an observed mother–child free-play task at 18 months were tested as independent predictors of child internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, social competence, and language development at 24 months. Participants (n = 292 mothers) were recruited between 2015 and 2017, and were low-income (mean annual income = $19,136) and racially…
Psychology (20 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (18 works) · Economics (12 works) · Developmental psychology (10 works) · Demographic economics (7 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Parental Involvement in Education (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Demography (5 works)