Biography

Constance Flanagan is a leading expert in the area of adolescent civic and political development. She earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan and is currently a professor of youth civic development in the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education at Penn State University. Her program of work, “Adolescents and the social contract,” focuses on the ways that young people interpret the rights and obligations individuals and societies owe one another. She directed a seven-nation study on this topic. Two new projects include: a longitudinal study of peer loyalty and social responsibility as it relates to teens’ views about health as a public or private issue and a study on the developmental correlates of social trust. Flanagan is a William T. Grant Faculty Scholar, a member of the MacArthur Network on the Transition to Adulthood and Public Policy, and a fellow in the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), Division 9 of the American Psychological Association. She is on the editorial board of five journals and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence.