Roderick L. Carey

Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences University of Delaware

  • Newark DE

Prof. Carey's research serves to make sense of the school experiences of black and Latino adolescent boys and young men in urban contexts.

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Spotlight

1 min

University of Delaware experts exploring Black and brown history and topics all year long

While Black History Month officially ended on Friday, the topic is one that is always top of mind for many professors and experts here at the University of Delaware. Below are a small list of these experts and the areas they explore throughout the year. Click on their profiles or email mediarelations@udel.edu to connect.  Roderick Carey, associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, can discuss the importance of gender and race diversity in teaching. Ann Aviles and Ohiro Oni-Eseleh, both professors in the College of Education and Human Development, can share resources for displaced families and guidance for parents, educators and other community members who want to support them. Yasser Payne, professor of sociology, examines notions of resilience, structural violence and gun violence with Black Americans.

Roderick L. CareyYasser Payne

2 min

University of Delaware experts share insights and strategies for navigating the upcoming school year

The College of Education and Human Development in the University of Delaware has a number of stories and experts for the upcoming school year.  Stories Bridging the language gap: How AWE software fosters inclusivity for English Language Learners and Non-English Language Learners alike Creating a mindful classroom: Tips for teachers on how to have a peaceful transition into the 2024-2025 school year Empowering Black and Latinx Boys in Their Postsecondary Journeys: The Role of School Communities UD assistant professor Eric Layland shares new research on LGBTQ+ developmental milestones and supporting LGBTQ+ youth University of Delaware assistant professor explores the tensions between hopes and expectations in vocational planning for autistic young adults Experts Allison Karpyn – an associate professor who can speak to topics related to hunger, obesity, school food, supermarket access, and food insecurity. She has spoken extensively about food in schools and can offer context to those subjects. Roderick Carey – an assistant professor whose current interdisciplinary research serves to make sense of the school experiences of black and Latino adolescent boys and young men in urban contexts. He can also talk about teacher education as it relates to men in the field/the impact of male teachers. To contact Karpyn or Carey, click their profiles.  More experts... If you would like to pursue any of these stories or speak to any of the following experts, they are all willing and excited to chat. Contact mediarelations@udel.edu to speak to them. Eric Layland – an assistant professor who can speak about LGBTQ+ student experiences from a research perspective. His work bridges LGBTQ+ developmental research to community impact through developmentally-informed, affirmative interventions. Sarah Mallory – an assistant professor who specializes in special education with a special focus on autism and other intellectual and developmental disabilities. She also works within the Center for Disabilities Studies. Sarah Curtiss – an assistant professor who specializes in special education with a special focus on autistic youth. Brittany Zakszeski – an assistant professor and nationally certified school psychologist, licensed psychologist and behavior analyst. She focuses on student and teacher mental health and can comment on what concealed weapons carried by teachers can do for the mental wellbeing of both students and teachers. Lauren Bailes – an associate professor who focuses on the ways in which organizational, social-cognitive, and leadership theory unite to promote the success of school leaders and K-12 students. Bryan VanGronigen – an assistant professor who specializes in organizational resilience and change management in K-12 schools with specific interest areas in efforts to improve schools, the preparation and professional development of educational leaders and educational policy analyses. Lynsey Gibbons – an associate professor specializing in mathematics education, in teacher professional learning and school partnerships across content areas.  Contact mediarelations@udel.edu to speak to these experts or for more information on the stories above. 

Roderick L. CareyAllison KarpynJoshua WilsonLeigh McLean

1 min

Empowering Black and Latinx Boys in Their Postsecondary Journeys: The Role of School Communities

In a new study published in the American Educational Research Journal, Roderick L. Carey, assistant professor in the University of Delaware's College of Education and Human Development, offers a rich, ethnographic case study on how Black and Latinx boys imagine their postsecondary futures. With attention to the students’ first-person narratives about their school experiences and personal aspirations, Carey shows how their high school—a Mid-Atlantic college preparatory school in the United States—ultimately fails to understand and support their college, career and personal aspirations for life after graduation. “College is just one facet of a broader interconnected life that adolescents need support in imagining,” said Carey, who teaches and conducts research within CEHD’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. “Postsecondary future selves is a concept that folds together three pieces of that broader life—college, career and life condition, or ‘the 3Cs.’ By focusing on one, and ignoring the other two, educators miss the mark.” Carey is available to talk about this new study as well as the possible solutions to this issue. Her has been recently featured in Technical.ly and WHYY, an NPR affiliate.  He can be contacted via his profile. 

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Biography

Roderick L. Carey is an Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development's (CEHD) Department of Human Development and Family Sciences and CEHD Faculty Scholar at the University of Delaware. His current interdisciplinary research serves to make sense of the school experiences of black and Latino adolescent boys and young men in urban contexts, drawing upon critical theories, sociological tools, and constructs from developmental psychology. Dr. Carey employs primarily qualitative approaches in researching and writing about both macro and micro issues related to families and schools, teacher education, professional development for equity, and the ways black and Latino adolescent boys and young men conceptualize their post-secondary school futures and enact college-going processes.

Dr. Carey received his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration on Minority and Urban Education, from the University of Maryland College Park; his Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education; and his B.A. in Secondary Education and English from Boston College.

Prior to joining the University of Delaware, Dr. Carey was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Urban Education. In partnership with the Department of Applied Developmental Psychology in the School of Education, he was the lead qualitative researcher on a team conducting mix-methods evaluations of the Heinz Endowments Youth Organizing initiative. He also chaired the first Center for Urban Education Summer Educator Forum, which brings together approximately 100 Pittsburgh area educators annually for two days of workshops, lectures, discussions, and other professional learning experiences. From 2009 to 2012, he was a Research Assistant for a $1.5 million Institute of Education Sciences grant to design a writing curriculum to improve reading and writing among predominantly black and Latino middle-school students.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Teacher Education
Post-Secondary Education
Developmental Psychology
African American Education‎
Latino Education

Media Appearances

New UD study finds high schools struggle to support aspirations of Black and Latino boys

Delaware Public Media  online

2024-05-24

Roderick L. Carey – assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development – talks about the barriers that low-income Black and Latino communities face in picturing and actualizing their postsecondary futures.

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Study: Positive Teacher-Student Relationships May Lead to Better Teaching

Diverse: Issues In Higher Education  online

2022-03-10

Dr. Roderick L. Carey, an assistant professor in the department of human development and family sciences at the University of Delaware, College of Education and Human Development, said the four high-impact teaching practices in the report are incredibly important, noting that the report referred to eliciting positive emotion from students during a lesson. He said it is important that teachers not cling to the historic tropes of the distant, sage-on-the stage teacher presenting or lecturing.

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Plateaued public school enrollment will likely fall due to COVID

Amsterdam News  online

2021-10-28

“The pandemic exacerbated feelings of nonbelonging and not-mattering; already tenuous relationships between schools and Black boys became more frayed,” Roderick L. Carey, a professor at the University of Delaware and creator of The Black Boy Mattering Project, told Chalkbeat. “We can use COVID as a miraculous opportunity to change schools for the better.”

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Articles

Making Black boys and young men matter: Radical relationships, future oriented imaginaries and other evolving insights for educational research and practice

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

2020

How have Black boys and young men mattered within society and schools, and how can educational stakeholders formulate contexts for them to do so more fully, robustly or comprehensively? Drawing from social-psychological conceptualizations and the author’s own prior theorizing, this essay investigates how Black boys and young men matter to those within society and schools by summoning historical antecedents, empirical research and present-day examples. Three types of mattering emerge from this investigation. Marginal mattering is realized through societal and educational practices that criminalize, dismiss and propel Black boys and young men into school and social failure. Partial mattering signals the valuation of some of their skills and abilities (e.g. often athletic, artistic and heroic in nature) and those which leave racist systems unchallenged.

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‘And school won’t teach me that!’ Urban youth activism programs as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning

Journal of Youth Studies

2021

To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people’s agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can also offer supplemental learning opportunities usually missing from schools, stimulate positive identity development, foster youth civic agency, and motivate young people to agitate for social change. However, while many studies have described what youth do in activism sites, what youth learn from activist engagement is less evident in the literature.

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Foregrounding family: How Salvadoran American boys formulate college‐going mindsets at the nexus of family, school, and the self

Anthropology & Education Quarterly

2021

I investigated how two U.S.‐born Salvadoran eleventh grade boys formulated college‐going mindsets at the nexus of family‐based cultural influences, adolescent development, masculinity, and academic self‐appraisals. With asset‐based theories, findings show how immigrant families encouraged college going by shielding their sons from noneducational responsibilities and conveyed educational messages with words and deeds. Participants formulated mindsets by interpreting family‐ and school‐based messaging and weighing college going against gender‐based responsibilities. Implications for educational anthropologists and practitioners are provided.

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Accomplishments

Professional Service Award, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity

2012

Distinguished Graduate Student Teacher Award, University of Maryland College Park Center for Teaching Excellence

2014

Outstanding Service Award, Center for Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh

2016

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Education

Boston College

BA

Secondary Education and English

2004

Harvard University

MEd

Human Development and Psychology

2005

University of Maryland

PhD

Minority and Urban Education

2015

Affiliations

  • American Educational Research Association : Divisions E, G, J, & K
  • Society of Research on Adolescence
  • National Association of Multicultural Education
  • Critical Race Studies in Education Association

Languages

  • English

Event Appearances

Boys and Men of Color: New Possibilities for Engaged and Collaborative Education Research and Practice

(2021) American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting  Virtual

“She Cares... She Doesn’t Let Them Slack!”: How Teachers Influence Adolescent Black Boys’ Perceived Mattering

(2021) American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting  Virtual

Promoting Engaged Scholarship Through Seed Grants: University of Delaware’s Partnership for Public Education Fellowship Program

(2021) Engagement Scholars Consortium Annual Conference  Virtual

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