The University of Iowa School of Social Work

Spotlights on Faculty Research

Professor Carol Coohey and Assistant Professor Lynette Renner
Professor Carol Coohey and Assistant Professor Lynette Renner traveled to Hawaii to the International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect to present their findings on their research.

Coohey, C., Renner, L., Hua, L., Zhang, Y. & Whitney, S., School success Academic achievement despite child maltreatment
Although child maltreatment has a negative effect on children's learning and academic achievement, not all children are negatively affected by maltreatment, and some children seem to succeed academically despite being maltreated. Drawing on risk and resilience theory, we examined a broad range of potential risk, promotive, and protective factors within children and their environments along with characteristics of the maltreatment to account for variability in achievement scores.

Coohey, C., Sabri, B. & Renner, L.
The effects of caregiver child relationship and victimization on anger among adolescents: Similarities and differences among three ethnic groups. Parenting, Victimization and Externalizing Behavior among Latino and White Adolescents

We examined whether and how the parent-adolescent relationship and direct and indirect victimization influenced externalizing behavior among Latinos and white adolescents in the U.S. Consistent with the cultural values model, we proposed that the parent-adolescent relationship would have a different effect on adjustment among ethnic groups because cultural values and beliefs may vary. However, we proposed that direct and indirect victimization would have a negative effect on adolescents' behavior regardless of ethnicity, which is consistent with the ethnic equivalence model.