Associate Professor, Human Development & Family Sciences
OnCourse Researchers, Office of Strategy & Policy
College of Natural Sciences
Aprile Benner’s substantive research interests center on the development of low-income and race/ethnic minority youth, investigating how social contexts influence experiences of marginalization and discrimination, school transitions, and developmental outcomes during adolescence. As a developmental psychologist, the core of her research program is a fundamental developmental question—what are the continuities and changes in the social, emotional, and cognitive growth and maturation of young people? Reflecting her training in educational demography, she works to answer this question with an awareness of how such developmental patterns are embedded in the groups, contexts, and social structures of society.
Her current research focuses on discrimination tied to race/ethnicity, social class, sexual minority status, and weight and linkages to disparities in mental and physical health and academic achievement. This includes investigations of the pathways by which experiences of discrimination tied to multiple identities vulnerable to stigmatization are linked to substance use in adolescence and young adulthood.