In response to great demand for smaller, more focused topical meetings during the biennial meeting off-years, SRCD presented three special topic meetings in 2012. These meetings were so well received that additional meetings are planned for 2014. Special topic meetings are much smaller (around 300 attendees each) and more focused than the biennial meeting. They typically run from Thursday morning through Saturday noon and are timed so as to not conflict with major societies (e.g., Society for Research on Adolescence, International Society for Infant Studies) that hold even-year meetings. They are structured to maximize opportunities for interactions among attendees and early career scholars.
Four meeting topics are planned for 2014:
1. Developmental Methodology will be repeated attending to suggestions from 2012 attendees. Todd Little and Noel Card will again organize this meeting. As was true in 2012, this meeting will advance and disseminate work at the interface of developmental science and quantitative methodology. Specifically, the conference will bring together methodological and developmental experts for discussion of (a) how recent advances in methodology can improve our study of child development, and (b) how the unique research questions of child development motivate advancements in quantitative methods. The conference will also include several didactic mechanisms for training in latest methodological advances.
2. Strengthening Connections Among Child and Family Research, Policy and Practice will be organized by Elizabeth Gershoff and Aletha Huston with the assistance of the Committee on Policy and Communications. The goal of this meeting will be to promote multidirectional communication among researchers and those who apply developmental science. Sessions will be organized to achieve communication between researchers and policymakers across 6 cross cutting themes: How policymakers use research; communication; examples of successful uses of research; examples of research-policy partnerships; the borderline of science and advocacy; and the next generation of research-policy connections.
3. Positive Youth Development (PYD) in the Context of the Global Recession will be organized by Anne Petersen and the International Affairs committee. PYD has become a popular approach to research and policy on youth development. The current global recession is predicted to affect the current generation of youth in pervasive and long lasting ways. This meeting will organize sessions on PYD, effects of the recession on youth, approaches and interventions to support PYD, and methods and databases to study PYD and intervene in the lives of youth. This meeting will be held outside the US.
4. New Conceptualizations in the Study of Parenting-At-Risk will be organized by Douglas Teti, Pamela Cole, Sherryl Goodman, Natasha Cabrera, and Vonnie McLoyd. This meeting will bring together scholars interested in parenting when risk is present, with the aim of moving toward a more integrated, in depth body of knowledge. Meeting themes will be: from individual risk to parenting processes, parenting as adaptation, fathering at risk, and interventions and policy. It will address variability in parenting, parenting across development, and tools and methodological concerns.