Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Psychology
University of Maryland
College Park
Dr. Oscar Barbarin is Chair and Professor of the African American Studies Department, University of Maryland, College Park.
Dr. Barbarin is the former Lila L. and Douglas J. Hertz Endowed Chair, Dept. of Psychology, Tulane University. He earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Rutgers University in 1975. He has served on the faculties of the Universities of Maryland, Michigan and North Carolina.
His research has focused on the social and familial determinants of ethnic and gender achievement gaps beginning in early childhood. He has developed a universal mental health screening system children pre-k to-8. He was principal investigator of a national study whose focus is the socio-emotional and academic development of boys of color. His work on children of African descent extends to a 20 year longitudinal study of the effects of poverty and violence on child development in South Africa. He served as Editor of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry from 2009-20014 and on the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Child Development 2007-2013.
Interests include :
• Longitudinal research on early childhood development emphasizing socio-emotional and academic development, the effects of early childhood intervention and the etiology of achievement and underachievement in ethnic minority children.
• Development of Culturally sensitive methods for early detection and prevention of emotional and behavioral problems of young children.
• Cross national research on effects of poverty and violence on the social emotional and academic development of children of African descent particularly in South Africa and United States.
Socio-emotional and Academic Development of Boys and Young Men of Color
