Elevating and advancing research on adolescent girls: Introducing APA Division 35’s Committee on Adolescent Girls

Hello SRA community! Are you looking for another opportunity to get involved with a great new initiative on adolescent development? We are the newly formed Committee for Adolescent Girls (CAG), a committeebased in APA Division 35 (Psychology of Women). The CAG is a diverse and dedicated team of researchers, practitioners, and educators working collaboratively to promote the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of adolescent girls (and female-identifying youth) through conducting and disseminating scholarly research, resources, and ideas. The following lays out our primary objectives, as well our preliminary plans to address them, which we believe will be of interest to many SRA members:

  1. Elevate, advance, and disseminate information relevant to adolescent girls.

As always, the first step in social change is education and awareness. Thus, our first goal is to share information relevant to the success, happiness, and well-being of adolescent girls. To that end, we have developed a quarterly newsletter which offers ideas, resources, and research reviews - among other things! We also hope to establish regularly held annual panel events, both within existing like-minded conferences (e.g., APA, SRA) and more informally (e.g., body image, social media engagement). Finally, given both the power of social media in information sharing and its role in adolescent development, we are working to build our social media presence.

  1. Facilitate broad and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Adolescence is among the most complex and multi-faceted stages of development, making it critical to take a broad approach to understanding and supporting girls’ unique experiences during this time. Just as a biopsychosocial model is the undisputed gold standard for considering human behavior, we must consider girls’ development from many angles. Our members are parents, teachers, researchers, practitioners, doctors, and teen girls themselves. This broad approach to understanding girls’ experiences leaves us better poised to share appropriate resources, make realistic recommendations, and promote relevant science. Additionally, our most recent initiative is to establish an advisory board of adolescent girls to help inform our progress. (Know a teen girl who might be interested? Let us know!)

  1. Center strengths and challenges of girls who have been historically excluded.

One of our primary goals is to integrate gender and race implications as they situate the unique experience of adolescent girls. Our cis-hetero patriarchal system necessitates a more nuanced approach to promote the well-being of all adolescent girls, particularly those who may be subjected to multiple systems of oppression. In line with this, our focus on adolescent girls emphasizes the inclusion of all female-identifying youth, as well as girls of color. Understanding intersecting systems of oppression allows for a more comprehensive understanding of our society’s role in hindering adolescent girls’ growth. In line with this, we are dedicated to including the varied voices of adolescent girls.

Adolescent girls deserve to live in a society that provides them with the support they need to live fully. The Committee for Adolescent Girls is dedicated to fulfilling these goals. As a new committee striving to enact social change for girls, we are actively searching for scholars, community organizers, youth practitioners, and any other like-minded individuals to be a part of this process. Membership can mean whatever you want it to mean—from simply attending events to helping advertise/share our social media content to being actively involved on a committee. You can reach us with any thoughts, comments, or questions at [email protected], and/or follow us on our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. Thank you in advance for your support as we work together to support teen girls!


 

Author bio:

The Committee for Adolescent girls is based in APA Division 35 (Psychology of Women). We are a diverse and dedicated team of researchers, practitioners, and educators working collaboratively to promote the mental, physical, and emotional well-being of adolescent girls through conducting and disseminating scholarly research, resources, and ideas.

Jill M. Swirsky, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Holy Family University and the co-chair of APA Division 35’s Committee for Adolescent Girls. Her research interests include peer relationships and social dynamics among early adolescents (e.g., aggression, victimization, popularity) as well as the role of social media behaviors in adolescent development and adjustment.

 

Alexandria C. Onuoha is a Ph.D. student in Applied Developmental Psychology at Suffolk University in the Youth Equity Sexuality lab. Her primary line of research examines the impact of far-right ideologies on Black adolescents’ development and explores the intersections of misogynoir and far-right ideologies. She is a member of APA Division 35’s Committee for Adolescent Girls.

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