Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Post-Doc, Melton Center, School of Education

About

Immigration, minoritization and adolescence; cultural and ecological context of youth development; urban zones of marginalization as developmental niche;  life habitus and life course models; ‘culture’ theories;  Turkish German and Arab German youth;  psychological and cognitive anthropology; anthropology of emotions; urban anthropology; mixed methods in anthropology

Dr. Julia Eksner is a psychological anthropologist investigating how ecocultural context and cultural meaning making influence the lives of minoritized youths. Her research is strongly interdisciplinary in nature as she investigates this question at the intersection of socio-cultural and psychological anthropology and developmental psychology. In her current research Julia Eksner is interested in the relationship between individual experiences of marginalized youths and the emergence of new cultural meaning systems, which are tied to the conditions of urban marginality. More specifically she investigates how urban, minoritized youths - especially youths with Turkish and Arab backgrounds in marginalized zones of Berlin (Germany) who grow up under conditions of structural disadvantage and stigmatizing discourses - create local meaning systems which manifest as newly emerging cultural practices on the social plane and again influence youths’ individual subjectivities, actions, and life pathways. Julia Eksner emphasis empirical research in which she draws on qualitative methods (e.g., ethnographic methods, case studies, and team ethnography) as well as mixed methods (e.g., surveys, cultural consensus analysis, and social network analysis). Her current publications include (coauthored with M. F. Orellana) Paraphrasing in the Zone of Proximal Development. Latino Child Translators and the Co-construction of Knowledge. Forthcoming in: Ethos. Journal of Psychological Anthropology, 40:2, 2012, and (coauthored with P. Stanat) Effects of Ethnically Segregated Learning Settings. Forthcoming in: Gallagher, K. S., Brewer, D., Goodyear, R., & Bensimon, E. (Ed.), Introduction to Urban Education. New York, NY: Routledge, 2011.

M.A., Social Anthropology, Free University of Berlin, 2001
Ph.D., Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, 2007
Research Scientist, Free University of Berlin, 2007-2008
Post-Doc, Center for Culture, Brain, and Development & Dept. of Anthropology, UCLA, 2009
Post-Doc, Anthropology of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010-2012

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