Dr Jenny Threlfall

Profile

Areas of Expertise

• Parenting
• Academic Achievement
• Racial and economic inequality

Academic Biography

I qualified as a social worker in 2003 and then worked in various youth development and educational settings in the UK and US. Most recently I worked with African American teens and their families in an inner city neighbourhood of St. Louis, Missouri. I stayed in the US for my doctoral studies, graduating from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis in the summer of 2015.

My dissertation research focused on the ways in which African American caregivers were involved in their children’s high school education and planning for college in the context of racial and economic inequality. I used qualitative methods to explore the challenges families faced as a result of factors such as segregated neighbourhoods and school systems. My study also highlighted forms of cultural wealth present in the low-income urban communities that participants lived in.

Other recent research projects I have been involved in have included the adaptation of an evidence based parenting program for urban African American fathers and an intervention study of trauma treatment for girls in child welfare.

I joined the School for Business and Society in August 2015.

• MA English Language and Literature: University of St. Andrews
• Masters in Social Work: University of Edinburgh
• PhD in Social Work: Washington University in St. Louis, USA Dissertation: Parent involvement in education and college planning for African American high school students