HDFS research scholarship has four primary areas or themes

HDFS mother and daughter

Child and Adolescent Development in Context

Discover how a variety of physical, social, and cultural settings shape children and adolescents.

HDFS couple with a son

Diverse Families, Poverty / Inequality, and Social Justice

Commit yourself to research on functioning and development in diverse families at complex ecological intersections.

Couple bicycling

Health and Well-Being Across the Lifespan

Strive to understand the dynamic interplay between interpersonal processes, diverse contextual environments, and health-related behaviors and outcomes for children, youth, adults, and families.

Couple embracing

Interpersonal / Intimate Relations

Conduct research on family and interpersonal relationships across the lifespan from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

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All of our faculty pursue research questions of social significance that cut across and combine two, three, or even four of these areas, a quality that adds strength to their efforts and opens up opportunities for collaborative scholarship and expanded sources of both internal and external funding.

We pride ourselves in the application of both quantitative techniques and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis to investigate issues of both basic and applied significance. Our research, inherently interdisciplinary and often transdisciplinary, is made stronger through frequent collaborations with other scholars on the UIUC campus, from universities across the U.S., and from universities internationally.

We address grand challenges regarding human development, relationships, and families through research scholarship always with a view to relevant contextual issues (e.g., neighborhood/community, poverty, diversity, family structure, laws/policy, culture, immigration).