Stephen Hamilton

Stephen Hamilton

Stephen F. Hamilton is Professor of Human Development and Associate Director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. His research on adolescent development and education emphasizes the interaction of school, community, and work during the transition to adulthood, especially in the contexts of work experience, experiential learning, community service, and mentoring relationships. A major portion of his responsibility includes developing and supporting 4-H youth development programs through Cornell Cooperative Extension. His book, Apprenticeship for Adulthood: Preparing Youth for the Future (1990), a product of a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in Germany, helped guide the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994, as did the youth apprenticeship demonstration project that he and Mary Agnes Hamilton directed. Other research includes a study of how adults mentor high school interns and apprentices in workplaces, which included an experimental mentor training program. With Mary Agnes Hamilton he co-edited The Youth Development Handbook: Coming of Age in American Communities (2004). They recently completed an action research partnership with organizations in Latin America that support the transition to adulthood of vulnerable youth. 

My appointment is in research and extension.  I rarely teach courses.  As an advisor I strive to support students as they gain a sense of direction in their lives and select career goals and courses accordingly.  When I mentor graduate students I encourage them to acquire a range of methodological tools and to discover and pursue the research questions that matter most to them.

The transition to adulthood entails the assumption of new social roles. As a result, social institutions are critical to successful transition, especially family, school, workplace, and community. The worldwide demand for advanced education and training delays the transition to adult status for those young people fortunate enough to have access to the institutions providing them. Some of them participate in those institutions but still find their paths to adulthood blocked by the absence of jobs. Other young people make premature partial transitions by assuming some adult roles before they have the capacity to be economically self-supporting, most by becoming parents and/or working rather than attending school. These challenges reveal a growing "structural lag" between the institutions that should promote the transition to adulthood and the needs of contemporary youth. New and more effective institutions are needed. My research seeks "social inventions" or institutional innovations that can meet this need. Institutions that foster mentoring relationships and employment opportunities are of greatest interest. Goals are to understand these new and emerging institutions, contribute to their improvement, adapt and disseminate them, and assess their effectiveness.  Mentoring, a quasi-parental relationship between a young person and a caring adult outside the family, is a key feature of supportive institutions.

As the youth development component of Cooperative Extension, 4-H draws on the resources of the land grant universities.  I have assumed a new role as the member of the faculty responsible for research related to 4-H.  This role includes a supervisory relationship with the state 4-H leader and leadership of efforts to ground New York State’s 4-H program more firmly in research.  Research in the fields represented in the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences and of Human Ecology is the source of the 4-H program’s content.  Research in youth development and related fields guides the way in which the program operates.  I direct a pilot project in Western New York using research for continuous improvement of 4-H.

Ed.D. 1975 - Harvard Graduate School of Education - Learning Environments

M.A.T. 1969 - Harvard Graduate School of Education - Social Studies

B.A. 1967 - Swarthmore College - History

http://youthinsociety.cornell.edu
http://www.human.cornell.edu/che/bio.cfm?netid=sfh3
http://www.actforyouth.net/

Associate Director for Youth Development, Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research

Hamilton, M. A., Hamilton, S. F., Bianchi, L. & Bran, J.  (in press).  Opening pathways for vulnerable young people in Patagonia.  Journal of Research on Adolescence.  

Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (in press).  Work and service.  In D.L. DuBois & M.J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring, second edition.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hamilton, S. F., & Hamilton, M. A. (in press).  Natural mentoring: Social capital to build human capital.  Unterrichtswissenschaft.

Hamilton, S. F., Chen, E. K., Pillemer, K., & Meador, R. H. (in press).  Research use by Cooperative Extension educators in New York State.  Journal of Extension. 

Hamilton, S. F. (in press).  Decisions and Directions: Making a Path through Life.  In J. Brooks-Gunn, R. M. Lerner, A. C. Petersen, & R. K. Silbereisen (Eds.).  The Developmental Science of Adolescence: History through Autobiography. New York: Psychology Press.

Hamilton, S. F., & Hamilton, M. A. (2012).  Development in youth enterprises.  New Directions for Youth Development. (134, Summer) 65-75.

Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (2010).  Building mentoring relationships.  New Directions for Youth Development (126, Summer) 141-144. 

Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (2009).  The transition to adulthood: Challenges of poverty and structural lag.  In R.M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed.) Volume 2, Contextual influences on adolescent development, pp. 492-526.  New York: Wiley.

Bradshaw, C.P., Brown, J.S., & Hamilton, S.F. (2008).  Bridging positive youth development and mental health services for youth with serious behavior problems.  Child & Youth Care Forum, 37(5-6) 209-263.

Hamilton, M.A., & Hamilton, S.F. (2008).  A precarious passage: Aging out of the child-only caseload.  Applied Developmental Science, 12(1) 10-25.

Hamilton, S.F. (2008).  Research-based Outreach: Albert Bandura’s Model.  Journal of Extension 46(1)  (electronic journal Article Number 1FEA2)   http://www.joe.org/joe/2008february/a2.shtml

Bradshaw, C.P., Brown, J.S., & Hamilton, S.F. (2006).  Applying positive youth development and life-course research to the treatment of adolescents with serious behavior problems.  Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling, 27(1) 2-16.

Hamilton, S.F. (2006).  Youth development and prevention.  Journal of Public Health Management and Practice.  Supplement, November, S7-S9 (commentary).

Hamilton, S.F., Hamilton, M.A., Hirsch, B.J., Hughes, J., King, J. & Maton, K. (2006). Community contexts for mentoring. Journal of Community Psychology 34 (6) 727-746.

Benson, P.L. Scales, P.S., Hamilton, S.F., & Sesma, A., Jr. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research and applications. In W. Damon & R.M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Volume 1, Theoretical models of human development. New York: Wiley.

Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (2006). School, work, and emerging adulthood. In J.J. Arnett & J.L. Tanner (Eds.), Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st century. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Hamilton, M.A., & Hamilton, S.F. (2005). Work and service. In D.L. DuBois & M.J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (2004). Contexts for mentoring. In R.M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.) Handbook of adolescent psychology. New York: Wiley.
 
Hamilton, S.F., & Hamilton, M.A. (Editors) (2004). The handbook of youth development: Coming of age in American communities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
 
Darling, N., Hamilton, S., Shaver, K.H. (2003). Relationships outside the family: Unrelated adults. In G.R. Adams & M.D. Berzonsky (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of adolescence.

Darling, N., Hamilton, S.F., Toyokawa, T., & Matsuda, S. (2002). Naturally occurring mentoring in Japan and the United States: Social roles and correlates. American Journal of Community Psychology 30: 245-270.

Hurrelmann, K., & Hamilton, S.F. (Editors) (1996). Social problems and social contexts in adolescence: Perspectives across boundaries. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Hamilton, S.F. (1990). Apprenticeship for adulthood: Preparing youth for the future. New York: Free Press.