The Muskegon Community College Lecture Series continues on Thursday, Oct. 29, with an online talk titled “Charting How Wealth Shapes Educational Pathways from Childhood to Early Adulthood: A Developmental Process Model.”
The free event begins at 6 p.m. To join the lecture on Zoom, please click the following link: https://muskegoncc-edu.zoom.us/j/96503011917?pwd=dHk5ZTJteE92Vlc0YW1mcFF1YUdUdz09
Meeting ID:965 0301 1917 Passcode: 231181 To connect to audio by phone, dial 1-646-558-8656.
University of Michigan Professor of Education Matthew Diemer, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist, will be the speaker. He examines how young people resist, challenge, and overcome racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and other constraints in school, college, work, and civic/ political institutions.
“Research has confirmed what everyone already knows: that family wealth contributes to children’s educational outcomes.,” explains Diemer. “However, the specific mechanisms, for example, what is that wealthy parents do and/or invest money in that account for these outcomes, are unknown.”
Diemer has applied a technique called structural equation modeling to 27 years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. He has found that wealth fosters parental and child processes – primarily expectations for later success and achievement – that promote educational success. Additionally, his research has shown that wealth is more important for younger versus older children and that pre-birth wealth has a significant mediated relationship to children’s educational attainment 17 years later.
Diemer, who served on the Michigan State University faculty prior to joining the University of Michigan, earned his doctorate from Boston College. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Utah and graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Psychology from Central Michigan University.
His work at the University of Michigan is currently funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation.
“Dr. Diemer’s work sheds new light on causes and solutions to academic differences between the rich and the poor,” said MCC faculty member Andy Wible, who coordinates the Lecture Series. “It is a perfect talk to tie into this year’s Arts and Humanities Festival.”
For more information, contact Wible at (231) 777-0626 or andy.wible@muskegoncc.edu.