Pratt, M.W., Lawford, H.L. & Allen, J.W. (2012). Early fatherhood, generativity and men’s development: Travelling a two-way street to maturity. In J. Ball & K. Daly (Eds.). Father involvement in Canada: Diversity, renewal, and transformation (pp. 192-221). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Vision Research, 39, 2681-2695.
Wilson, A.E., Allen, J.W., Strahan, E.J. & Ethier. N. (2008). Getting involved: Testing the effectiveness of a volunteering intervention on young adolescents’ future intentions. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 18, 630-637.
My research interests focus on variety of topics related to social and cognitive development in children and young people, particularly in the areas of narrative development, identity formation, positive youth development and culture and cognition. I work from the theoretical framework of cultural developmental psychology to document culturally-based “forms” and “functions” of developing cognitive and social skills among children and youth that emerge from interactions within cultural communities. Much of my research also involves a community-based approach and has been conducted in partnership with Indigenous communities and knowledge keepers in Canada. These research partnerships have focused on collaboratively developing an understanding of the processes by which community efforts to promote and maintain Indigenous culture act as a protective factor in the development and well-being of Aboriginal children and young people, and to explore how experiences with Indigenous cultural practices may serve as resources supporting various aspects of cognitive and social development, among both indigenous and non-Indigenous children and youth.