UNC School of Education

>> Hamm, Jill

Jill Hamm’s research focuses on adolescents’ peer relations in ethnically diverse schools – especially their inter-group relations and the impact of these relations on adolescents’ school adjustment. She is currently principal investigator of a research study funded by the Spencer Foundation, and was co-principal investigator of a longitudinal study funded by the National Science Foundation; for both projects, her focus is on the peer context of early adolescents’ motivation and learning in relation to mathematics instruction.  Hamm is also principal investigator of a study of adolescents’ identity in geographic locale funded by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently serves as co-principal investigator with the Rural Early Adolescent Learning Program of the National Research Center on Rural Education.

Hamm’s recent work investigates peer relations as processes – rather than the previously held notion of products – underlying aspects of African American, Asian, Latino and White students’ adjustment in ethnically diverse schools and classrooms. Hamm has published her research in professional journals such as Developmental Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Research on Adolescence and Journal of Early Adolescence.

Hamm’s future research interests include the peer context of development for early adolescents in mathematics classrooms and in rural settings, rural parents’ beliefs and parenting practices during their children’s transition into middle school and adolescents’ identity development in relation to their geographic locale.