Ph.D. in Education, 2012
School of Education
January 1, 2009
First Ph.D. in Education Student to Advance to Candidacy Engaged in Teaching, Research, and Publishing
Maria E. Parente is a fourth year doctoral student in the Department of Education in the Educational Policy and Social Context specialization. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development from Cornell University in 2003. Subsequently, she worked as Project Coordinator for the Yale University Study of Children’s Afterschool Time (PI: Joseph L. Mahoney, Ph.D.), a five-year longitudinal study investigating afterschool arrangements and their developmental correlates in an urban, low-income sample.
Maria received her Master of Science degree in Psychology from Yale University in 2007. As an early career fellow of the Yale University Zigler Center for Child Development and Social Policy, her interests lie at the intersection of research and social policy, concerning issues of youth out-of-school time activities, neighborhood crime and structure, and the consequences of living in poverty.
During her time at UC Irvine, Maria has primarily split her time between teaching and research. She has taken on the responsibility of teaching the statistical program lab courses for the incoming Ph.D. students and fulfilled the course and research requirements for the Masters in Education (2008).
Along with her advisor, Associate Professor Joseph L. Mahoney, Maria has also put forth several publications during her time at UCI, including a book chapter concerning child and adolescent activity participation and a journal article concentrating on adolescent unsupervised time outside of school. Recently, she was accepted to present at a student poster symposium (Chair: Edward Seidman) at the upcoming conference for the Society of Research in Child Development (April, 2009).
Maria recently became the first student in the inaugural class of the Ph.D. program to advance to doctoral candidacy, having defended her dissertation proposal in November, 2008. Her dissertation will focus on the social and academic consequences of child and adolescent time spent in unsupervised care during the out of school hours. She will examine probable moderators of these consequences, including neighborhood structural characteristics, parental monitoring, and friendship patterns.
Selected Publications
Parente, M. E., & Mahoney, J. L. (under review). A longitudinal study of residential mobility, exposure to neighborhood crime, and childhood aggression. Journal of Community Psychology.
Mahoney, J. L. & Parente, M. E. (in press). Should we care about adolescents who care for themselves? What we’ve learned and what we need to know. Child Development Perspectives.
Parente, M. E., & Mahoney, J. L. (in press). Activity participation in childhood and adolescence. Invited chapter to appear in D. Carr (Editor-in-Chief), R. Crosnoe, M.E. Hughes, & A. Pienta (Assoc. Eds.), Encyclopedia of the Life Course and Human Development.
Mahoney, J.L., Parente, M.E., & Zigler, E. F. (in press). After-school program participation and children’s development. Invited chapter to appear in J. Meece & J.S. Eccles (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Schools, Schooling, and Human Development.
Lord, H., Parente, M.E., & Mahoney J.L. (2008) Extracurricular activities. Invited chapter to appear in R.A. Schweder (Editor-in-Chief), Chicago Companion to the Child.
Mahoney, J.L., Parente, M.E., & Lord, H. (2007) After-school program engagement: Developmental consequences and links to program quality and content. The Elementary School Journal, 107, 385-404