ProjectsPP2020

 

Professor Laursen is currently involved in several longitudinal projects, which focus, in one way or another, on influence within close relationships.

 
The first project involves a large group of elementary and middle school children from a school district whose population is representative of students in the state of Florida. Over the course of an academic year, students identify changes in friends and changes in behaviors in school, to better understand who is friends with whom and how influence is apportioned within the relationship.


A second project concerns the transition from primary school to middle school in a large community sample of Lithuanian youth, whose adjustment,friendships, and relationships with parents will be tracked for three consecutive years. The project is being conducted in collaboration with Professor Rita Žukauskienė of Mykolas Romeris University.


A final set of projects concerns child characteristics that (a) moderate associations from parent reading to early childhood literacy and (b) elicit differential parent engagement in literacy activities. Several studies converging on this theme are underway at the Trygfondens Center for Child Research (Aarhus University, Denmark) under the direction of Professor Dorthe Bleses.

 

Brett Laursen has received support from the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the US National Institute of Mental Health, the US National Science Foundation,    the Jacobs Foundation, and the European Social Fund under a grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuanian Research Council.