My perspective is one in which I seek to understand the way "lifetimes" are put together. "Lifetimes" are organized both socially (for instance, in the United States, one is practically, legally, and morally required to be formally educated during much of one's first two decades of life, typically within specialized educational institutions), and psychologically (I am in some sense the same John Modell that my parents raised, and in some senses a different character). My research addresses this mix of concerns, and so does my teaching; I talk mostly about kids and schools, and the several contexts, historical, national, local, and socioeconomic, that affect them.

Areas of Specialization and Research: Life Course; Sociology of Childhood, Adolescence and Youth; Sociology of Education; History of Social & Behavioral Science

Description of Research and Teaching Interests: My perspective is one in which I seek to understand the way "lifetimes" are put together. "Lifetimes" are organized both socially (for instance, in the United States, one is practically, legally, and morally required to be formally educated during much of one's first two decades of life, typically within specialized educational institutions), and psychologically (I am in some sense the same John Modell that my parents raised, and in some senses a different character). My research addresses this mix of concerns, and so does my teaching; I talk mostly about kids and schools, and the several contexts, historical, national, local, and socioeconomic, that affect them.

In recent years, I have come to understand the discipline in which I was trained, History, not as a subject matter in itself, but instead as a method. The questions that most attract me now fall under two headings: human development, and the nature of disciplinary and public knowledge in the social and behavioral sciences. More specifically, I am working to understand progress in and through institutions of formal education as a historically-embedded past of children's lives; and to understand the failed synthesis of the social and behavioral sciences that seemed so promising in the United States in the two decades that followed World War II.

John Modell, "When History is Omitted," in Alan C. Booth, Ann C. Crouter, and Michael J. Shanahan, Eds, Transitions to Adulthood in a Changing Economy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999).

John Modell, "When History is Omitted," in Alan C. Booth, Ann C. Crouter, and Michael J. Shanahan, Eds, Transitions to Adulthood in a Changing Economy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999).

John Modell, "Responsibility and Self-Respect: How Alone Do Americans Stand?" , Human Development, 41, 1998.

John Modell, "Responsibility and Self-Respect: How Alone Do Americans Stand?" , Human Development, 41, 1998.

John Modell and J. Trent Alexander, "Community, School, and Peer Group in Abilene (KS), 1939", History of Education Quarterly, 1997.

John Modell and J. Trent Alexander, "Community, School, and Peer Group in Abilene (KS), 1939", History of Education Quarterly, 1997.

John Modell , "The Uneasy Engagement of Ethnography and Human Development," in Anne Colby, Richard Jessor, and Richard Shweder, eds., Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

John Modell , "The Uneasy Engagement of Ethnography and Human Development," in Anne Colby, Richard Jessor, and Richard Shweder, eds., Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

John Modell , "Did the Good War Make Good Workers?" in The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society, ed. Kenneth Paul O'Brien and Lynn Hudson Parsons (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995).

John Modell , "Did the Good War Make Good Workers?" in The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society, ed. Kenneth Paul O'Brien and Lynn Hudson Parsons (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995).

John Modell , "When May Social Capital Influence Children's School Performance?" in Anne Petersen and Jeylan T. Mortimer, eds., Youth Unemployment and Society (New York: Cambridge Univesity Press, 1994).

John Modell , Schooling and School-Learning in Children's Lives, (editor, special issue of Comparative Education Review, volume 38, number 1 [1994]).

John Modell , "When May Social Capital Influence Children's School Performance?" in Anne Petersen and Jeylan T. Mortimer, eds., Youth Unemployment and Society (New York: Cambridge Univesity Press, 1994).

John Modell , Schooling and School-Learning in Children's Lives, (editor, special issue of Comparative Education Review, volume 38, number 1 [1994]).

Glen H. Elder, Jr., John Modell, and Ross H. Parke, eds., Children in Time and Place (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).