Faculty Directory
Gilda Morelli
Department Chair, Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology
Associate Professor
Gilda Morelli
Ph.D.
Contact
Campion 240
Telephone: 617-552-4094
Email: gilda.morelli@bc.edu
ORCID
Education
- Ph.D., University Massachusetts Amherst
- M.A., University of Massachusetts Amherst
- B.A., University of Massachusetts Boston
Courses
Applied Psychology Practicum: Pathways to Purposeful Work and Life
Cultural Processes, Social and Emotional Development
Research Interests
The sociocultural and ecological aspects of infants' and young children's development, with interest in the close relationships children develop with the people who care for them;聽 the relation between caregivers' perception of material and psychological scarcity and tradeoffs they make that impact child and family experinece and functioning;聽 public policy, livelihood, and child well-being
Expertise
- Equity and Social Justice
- Formative and Whole Person Education
- Social & Emotional Development
Department
Profile
Gilda Morelli is Department Chair of the Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology Department at Boston College. Her research examines the role of socioecological and cultural processes in mediating young children鈥檚 relational experiences. This work began with Efe hunters and gatherers of DR Congo over 30 years ago and represents one strand of research on similarities and differences in young children鈥檚 social experiences in communities in DR Congo, Gabon, the U.S. and Guatemala. Morelli, currently, is examining young children鈥檚 use of relational networks to secure needed scarce resources.
Morelli co-founded the Ituri Peoples Project Fund (501c3) to support the education and health of families living in the Ituri Providence of DR Congo and she was an SRCD Policy Fellow in, and later consultant for, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) on children鈥檚 care in formal and informal settings. Prof Morelli is involved with efforts to strengthen the evidentiary basis of culturally relevant early childhood care and education interventions. As part of this effort, she chaired and co-organized an SRCD sponsored workshop of researchers, practitioners, and NGO representatives from different regions worldwide. The aim was to promote productive conversation on children鈥檚 care, learning and development. The workshop was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and the LEGO Foundation.
Currently, Morelli is part of a team of researchers examining the effectiveness of guidelines put into place by the Society of Research in Child Development to ensure that journal authors explicitly consider sociocultural contexts in research on children and families and in their description, analysis and interpretation of manuscripts published in SRCD journals. The initiative is supported by grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundations and by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Publications
Murray, M. & Morelli, G. (in press) Social transformations during infancy: contributions through a聽crisis-oriented lens. In E. Lowe (Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook for Psychological聽Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkie, D. & Morelli, G. (2024). The Mistaken Mulozi: A P&T Detective Story 979-8218480233.
Ivey Henry, P., Morelli, G.A. (2022). Niche Construction in Hunter-Gatherer Infancy: Growth and聽Health Trade-Offs Inform Social Agency. In: S. L. Hart, D.F Bjorklund (Eds). Evolutionary聽Perspectives on Infancy. Evolutionary Psychology. Springer, Cham.聽
Morelli, G. A. & Lui, L. (2021). Pluralities and commonalities in children鈥檚 relationships: Care of聽Efe forager infants as a case study. In R.A. Thompson, J.A. Simpson, L. J. Berlin (Eds),聽Attachment: The fundamental questions (237-244). NY: Guildford Press.
Morelli, G.A., Henry, P., & Spielvogel, B. (2019). Learning prosociality: Insights from young forager聽and farmer children鈥檚 food sharing with mothers and others. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology,聽Special Issue 鈥淎n Evolutionary Perspective on the Development of Sociality, 73-86.
Morelli, G. A., Quinn, N., Chaudhary, N., Vicedo, M., Rosabal-Coto, M., Keller, H., 鈥� Takada, A. (2018). Ethical challenges of parenting interventions in low to middle income countries.聽Journal Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(1), 5-24.
Keller, H., Bard, K., Morelli, G., Chaudhary, N., Vicedo, M., Rosabal-Coto, M., & Gottlieb, A.聽(2018). The myth of universal sensitive responsiveness: Comment on Mesman et al. (2017).聽Child Development.
Morelli, G. A., Bard, K., Chaudhary, N., Gottlieb, A., Keller, H., Murray, M., 鈥icedo, M. (2018).聽Bringing the real world into developmental science: A commentary on Weber, Fernald, &聽Diop (2017). Child Development.
Morelli, G. A., Chaudhary, N., Gottlieb, A., Keller, H., Murray, J., Quinn, N., Rosabal-Coto, M.,聽Scheidecker, G., Takada, A., Vicedo, M. (2017). Taking culture seriously: Developing a聽pluralistic theory of attachments. In H. Keller, K. Bard (Eds.) Contextualizing attachment: The聽cultural nature of attachment (335-354). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rosabal-Coto, M., Quinn, N., Keller, H., Vicedo, M., Chaudhary, N., Gottlieb, A., Scheidecker, G.,聽Murray, J., Takada, A., Morelli, G. A (2017). Real-world applications of attachment theory.聽In H. Keller, K. Bard (Eds.) Contextualizing attachment: The cultural nature of attachment (225-354). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Recent Grant-funded Projects
2021- ROBERT WOOD FOUNDATION. Data Tracking Initiative. Funds to SRCD to support聽research on the effectiveness of Sociocultural Policy with Dawn Witherspoon, Miao Qian,聽Tiffany Yip, Alaina Brenick, Lauren Bader.
2021-2023 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Data Tracking Initiative. Funds to SRCD to聽support research on the effectiveness of Sociocultural Policy with Dawn聽Witherspoon, Miao Qian, Tiffany Yip, Alaina Brenick, Lauren Bader.
2019-2021 LEGO Foundation. Strengthening the evidence base for culturally relevant聽interventions in early childhood care and education. Conference Grant. G. Morelli,聽$100,000.
2019-2021 SPENCER FOUNDATION. Translating Early Childhood Care and Education聽Interventions Across Cultures. Conference Grant G. Morelli,聽$49, 655.52.