Faculty Directory
Daphne Henry
Assistant Professor
Daphne Henry
Ph.D.
Contact
Campion 239A
Telephone: 671-552-8664
Email: daphne.henry@bc.edu
Research Interests
- Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement
- Contextual influences on child and adolescent development
- Intersectionality and child development
- Socioeconomic and cultural determinants of parenting beliefs and practices
- Academic resilience among socioeconomically-disadvantaged youth
Department
Profile
Daphne A. Henry’s research investigates how socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity intersect to shape children’s academic development and developmental contexts, including their home, school, and neighborhood environments. Her scholarship is multidisciplinary and incorporates theoretical insights and empirical evidence from developmental psychology, sociology, education, and economics. She aims to increase understanding of the processes linking race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status to children’s academic functioning and to conduct policy-relevant research that considers how complex patterns of family, community, and societal inequality influence children’s early development and long-term well-being.
To study children’s development, Henry employs a diverse methodological tool-kit. She uses rigorous statistical techniques to analyze large-scale longitudinal datasets and has substantial experience collecting and analyzing qualitative and mixed-methods data. Henry teaches Family, School, and Society—a core undergraduate course that explores contextual influences on child development—as well as a foundational graduate course in quantitative research design.
Henry earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center. She has received fellowship support from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, and the American Psychological Foundation, and her research has been published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, Advances in Child Development and Behavior, and American Psychologist.
Select Publications
Edited Books
Henry, D. A., Miller, P., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (Eds.). (2019). Advances in child development and behavior: Child development at the intersection of race and SES (Vol. 57). Series Editor: J. B. Benson. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier (Academic Press imprint). doi:10.1016/S0065-2407(19)30031-X
Book Chapters
Wang, M. T., Henry, D. A., & Degol, J. L. (2020). A development-in-sociocultural-context perspective on the multiple pathways to youth’s engagement in learning. In A. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in motivation science (Vol. 7). New York: Elsevier (Academic Press imprint).
Henry, D. A., Votruba-Drzal, E., & Miller, P. (2019). Preface. In D. A. Henry, P. Miller, & E. Votruba-Drzal (Eds.) Advances in child development and behavior: Child development at the intersection of race and SES (Vol. 57, pp. xi-xxiv). Series Editor: J. B. Benson. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier (Academic Press imprint). doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2019.05.002
Henry, D. A., Votruba-Drzal, E., & Miller, P. (2019). Child development at the intersection of race and SES: An overview. In D. A. Henry, P. Miller, & E. Votruba-Drzal (Eds.) Advances in child development and behavior: Child development at the intersection of race and SES (Vol. 57, pp. 1-25). Series Editor: J. B. Benson. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier (Academic Press imprint). doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2019.05.002
Henry, D. A., Miller, P., Votruba-Drzal, E., & Parr, A. K. (2019). Safe and sound? Exploring parents’ perceptions of neighborhood safety at the nexus of race and socioeconomic status. In D. A. Henry, P. Miller, & E. Votruba-Drzal (Eds.) Advances in child development and behavior: Child development at the intersection of race and SES (Vol. 57, pp. 281-313). Series Editor: J. B. Benson. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier (Academic Press imprint). doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2019.05.001
Journal Articles
Henry, D. A., Betancur Cortés, L., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (2020). Black-White achievement gaps differ by family socioeconomic status from early childhood through early adolescence. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/edu0000439
Elliott, L., Bachman, H. J., & Henry, D. A. (2019). Why and how do parents promote math learning with their young children: A mixed-methods investigation. Parenting: Science and Practice. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/15295192.2019.1694830
Wang, M. T., Henry, D. A., Smith, L. V., Huguley, J. P., & Guo, J. (2019). Parental ethnic-racial socialization practices and children of color’s psychosocial and behavioral adjustment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 75, 1–22. doi:10.1037/amp0000464
Wang, M. T., Degol, J. L., Henry, D. A. (2019). An integrative development-in-sociocultural-context model for children's engagement in learning. American Psychologist, 74, 1086–1102. doi: 10.1037/amp0000522
Miller, P., Henry, D., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (2016). Strengthening causal inference in developmental research. Child Development Perspectives, 10, 275–280. doi:10.1111/cdep.12202