It is truly an honor to receive the Mavis Hetherington Award for Excellence in Applied Developmental Science. Mavis Hetherington’s work sparked my initial interest in developmental psychology and has continued to shape my thinking to this day.
I was first exposed to developmental psychology through Mavis Hetherington and Ross Parke’s seminal undergraduate textbook on Child Psychology. I was fascinated by the topics—particularly those focused on families. I went on to graduate school and had the honor of being mentored by Ross Parke. My doctoral research focused on children’s peer relationships and how parents managed children’s friendships, including setting rules and organizing children’s after-school activities. After my doctoral studies, I had the privilege of working with Jacque Eccles and studied how families influenced youth’s motivation and choices in a range of pursuits including STEM and after-school activities.
One central contribution of my work is charting the changes in youth’s STEM motivational beliefs for diverse youth and the family correlates. Parents are the unwavering backbone of youth’s support system. However, many parents say they struggle helping their children in math and science. Our research suggests parents provide support in many little ways, which collectively matter for youth’s motivation (Simpkins, Fredricks, & Eccles, 2015; Starr, Tulagan, & Simpkins, 2022). We have published several studies describing how parents and older siblings serve as sources of strength for the positive STEM motivational development of Latine high school students (Soto-Lara & Simpkins, 2022). Now, Jacque Eccles and I are extending this work with a team of talented rising scholars by testing the extent to which findings replicate among diverse groups defined by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status, and across six datasets that vary in methodology and span the 1980s to 2010s (Hsieh & Simpkins, 2022; Puente et al., 2021; Rubach et al., 2022).
A second long-standing area of my research describes youth’s organized after-school activities. Rigorous research is key to policy decisions on funding and helping support the use of best practices in activities. Much of my work has focused on questions that have both theoretical and applied implications including, the benefits and challenges of participating in activities and how activities can serve as a structural support for diverse youth. For instance, Deborah Vandell and I are publishing a series of papers examining complex developmental questions concerning for whom, for which activities, and under what circumstances activities matter (Simpkins, Vandell, & Liu, in press; Vandell, Simpkins, & Liu, 2021). Another area that needs more attention is considering how to design activities that benefit all youth in our diverse society. To this end, I have published several studies that focus on how culture, ethnicity, social class, and immigration shape Latine adolescents’ after-school activities. Some of this work has illustrated the negative experiences of Latine youth, including experiencing peer discrimination and microaggressions in organized activities as well as the cascading effects of the immigration law in Arizona (i.e., SB1070) on families (Lin et al., 2016; Ma et al., 2020). In response to these concerns, I led an interdisciplinary effort to develop a framework for culturally responsive activities (Simpkins et al., 2017). My students and I have found that culturally responsive practices have great potential, but they can also have significant negative implications for Latine youth if these practices are not responsive (Ettekal et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2021). We have used this work to advise local, state, and national after-school organizations to promote inclusion and improve the quality of activities for all youth.
Mavis Hetherington’s work underscored the importance of relationships in people’s lives, particularly family relationships. My achievements have only been possible because of the numerous people who have enriched my life. I want to first thank my family, including my husband, daughters, parents, grandparents, and brothers. Ross always had the doctoral students complete an academic family tree. I am forever grateful to my academic family including my mentors and mentees, as well as my academic siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I also have had the privilege of working with outstanding colleagues at Arizona State University and the University of California, Irvine. I would not be who I am without all of you.
References
Ettekal, A. E., Simpkins, S. D., Menjivar, C., & Delgado, M. Y. D. (2020). The complexities of culturally responsive organized activities: Latino parents’ and adolescents’ perspectives. Journal of Adolescent Research, 35, 395-426.
Hsieh, T., & Simpkins, S. D. (2022). The patterns of adolescents’ math and science motivational beliefs: Examining within-racial/ethnic group changes and relation to STEM outcomes. AERA Open, 8, 1-22.
Lin, A. R., Menjivar, C., Ettekal, A. E., Simpkins, S. D., Gaskin, E., & Pesch, A. (2016). “They will post a law about playing soccer” and other ethnic/racial microaggressions in organized activities experienced by Mexican-origin families. Journal of Adolescent Research, 31, 557 - 581.
Ma, T. L., Yu, M.B., Soto-Lara, S., & Simpkins, S.D. (2020). Latinx adolescents’ peer ethnic discrimination in organized after-school activities: Links to activity engagement and experiences. Journal of Youth Development, 15, 195-221.
Rubach, C., Lee, G., Starr, C., Gao, Y., Safavian, N., Dicke A.-L., Eccles, J. S., & Simpkins, S. D. (2022). Is there any evidence of historical changes in gender differences in American high school students’ math competence-related beliefs from the 1980s to the 2010s? International Journal of Gender, Science, and Technology, 14, 55 – 126.
Simpkins, S. D., Fredricks, J., & Eccles, J. S. (2015). The role of parents in the ontogeny of achievement‐related motivation and behavioral choices. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 80(2), 1 – 151.
Simpkins, S. D., Riggs, N. R., Ngo, B., Ettekal, A. E., & Okamoto, D. (2017). Designing culturally responsive organized after-school activities. Journal of Adolescent Research, 32, 11 - 36.
Simpkins, S. D., Vandell, D. L., & Liu, Y. (in press). Participation and enjoyment in out-of-school activities during adolescence as predictors of activities in adulthood. Journal of Research on Adolescence.
Soto-Lara, S., & Simpkins, S. D. (2022). Parent support of Mexican-descent high school adolescents' science education: A culturally-grounded framework. Journal of Adolescent Research, 37, 541 – 570.
Starr, C. R., Tulagan, N., & Simpkins, S. D. (2022). Black and Latinx adolescents’ STEM motivational beliefs: A systematic review of the literature on parent STEM support. Educational Psychology Review, 34, 1877 – 1917.
Vandell, D. L., Simpkins, S. D., & Liu, Y. (2021). From early care and education to adulthood problem behaviors: A prevention pathway through organized activities. Development and Psychopathology, 33(2), 658-669.
Yu, M.B., Soto-Lara, S., Liu, Y., Puente, K., Carranza, P.R., Pantano, A., & Simpkins, S.D. (2021). Culturally responsive practices: Insights from a high-quality math afterschool program serving underprivileged Latinx youth. American Journal of Community Psychology, 68, 323-339.