Department of Human & Community Development, University of Illinois

marcela raffaelli

Education and Training

Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Bachelor of Arts, 1982
Major: Psychology

University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Doctor of Philosophy, 1990
Major: Psychology (Human Development)

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, 1990 – 1992
Specialty: International health and HIV/AIDS

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Assistant Research Professor, 1992 – 1994

Research Interests

Adolescent risk taking, developmental trajectories of homeless and impoverished youth, sexual socialization in Latino families, and promoting positive adaptation of immigrant families.

My interests center on issues of risk and resilience in children and adolescents from culturally diverse and “non-mainstream” populations. My research program at UIUC is just getting under way. In the meantime, I have several datasets from completed studies that I am working on. The NIH-funded Latino Family Socialization Study explored family practices related to gender/sexual socialization and current sexual experiences among Latino and Latina young adults. The Young Adult Couples Study was designed to test a theoretical model of sexual relationships in heterosexual couples. The Childhood Origins of Adolescent Sexual Risk Taking Study (funded by NIH) used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to conduct a 16-year prospective study of individual, family, and contextual factors linked to adolescent sexual risk-taking.

For the past 15 years, I have been conducting collaborative research with Professor Silvia H. Koller, a faculty member at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Dr. Koller is co-founder of the Center for the Psychological Study of Street Children and Adolescents. In the past, we have conducted studies on the developmental impact of homelessness and we continue this work. In addition, we are analyzing data from a large study conducted with over 9,000 impoverished Brazilian youth.

At the University of Nebraska (UNL), I helped organize the Latino Research Initiative, a community-university partnership aimed at addressing the needs of Nebraska’s Latino population. I am involved in several ongoing projects with former colleagues at UNL.

Selected Publications

Raffaelli, M., Koller, S. H., Cerqueira-Santos, E., & de Morais, N. A. (2007). Developmental risks and psychosocial adjustment among low-income Brazilian youth. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 565-584.

Raffaelli, M., Carlo, G., Carranza, M., & Gonzalez-Kruger, G. (2005). Understanding Latino children and adolescents in the mainstream: Placing culture at the center of developmental models. In R. Larson & L. Arnett Jensen (Eds.), New horizons in developmental theory and research. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, No. 109 (pp. 23-32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Raffaelli, M. (2005). Adolescent dating experiences described by Latino college students. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 559-572.

Raffaelli, M., & Koller, S. H. (2005). Future expectations of Brasilian street youth. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 249-262.

Raffaelli, M., & Ontai, L. L. (2004). Gender socialization in Latino/a families: Results from two retrospective studies. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 50, 287-299.

Raffaelli, M., & Crockett, L. J. (2003). Predicting sexual risk-taking: The role of self-regulation and attraction to risk. Developmental Psychology, 39, 1036-1046.

Professional Memberships

Society for Research in Child Development

Society for Research on Adolescence

National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse.

Courses Taught

HDFS/LLS 422: U.S. Latino/a Families