PDX - Key Persons
Karlyn Adams-Wiggins (Ph.D., Rutgers University; B.A., Lafayette College) is an educational and developmental psychologist, broadly interested in the intersection of academic achievement motivation and identity, with a specific focus on how adolescents' identities are negotiated in social interactions. They are currently the president of the Scholarly Consortium for Innovative Psychology in Education (SCIPIE) and previously chaired the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Adolescence & Youth Development SIG. Karlyn is also a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow during 2021-2023.
Karlyn's current work addresses social interaction and identity construction through two primary research themes: 1) achievement motivation from a situative perspective in reform-oriented science learning environments and 2) Black/African diaspora youths' construction of identities in context. In Karlyn's science education research, marginal identities are conceptualized as reflecting power relations in the local social context as well as in broader social systems (Adams-Wiggins, 2020; Adams-Wiggins et al., 2020; Adams-Wiggins & Tierney, 2021). Karlyn is collaborating with graduate students and former graduate students to examine similar processes in undergraduate research experiences for students of color and first-generation college students (e.g. Cerda-Lezama, Lindwall, & Adams-Wiggins, 2021). Their newer work examines Black/African-diaspora youths' identity development using a critical and sociohistorical lens to address themes of coloniality as a classed phenomenon in youths' lived experience (Adams-Wiggins & Taylor-Garcia, 2020; Adams-Wiggins, accepted).
Across projects, Karlyn employs a critical and sociohistorical psychology lens in service of addressing social inequality and social justice aims. This ethically-committed approach also has informed Karlyn's heavy use qualitative methods, which includes video-recorded observations, field work, and interviewing.