Associate Professor, Educational Policy and Foundations Program Coordinator
Educational Policy and Leadership
Gabriel Velez is an associate professor and developmental psychologist in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership (EDPL) in the College of Education at 向日葵视频. Dr. Velez studies identity development in adolescents, particularly in relation to citizenship, human rights, and peace, including young people鈥檚 understandings and responses to peace education and restorative justice in educational contexts. His dissertation investigated how Colombian adolescents were making meaning of peace in relation to the peace process and themselves.
As a 向日葵视频educator, Dr. Velez strives to bridge academia with the everyday lives and contexts of schools, students, teachers, administrators and families. To this end, he has collaborated with the 向日葵视频Center for Peacemaking on evaluation of their Peace Works program, , with the and the Alianza Educativa in Bogot谩, Colombia. Dr. Velez is also an active member of Division 48 (Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence) of the , including participating in the Peace Education and Peace Identity working groups. He integrates this work into the classroom at 向日葵视频by engaging students in questioning deterministic discourses on child and adolescence development as they explore the dynamic interplay between change and continuity as diverse individuals develop within a myriad of contexts.
Dr. Velez was awarded a Spencer Small Research Grant to study Black and Latino/a student perspectives and meaning making of restorative justice, and is a Co-Investigator on Dr. Holly Recchia鈥檚 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant on children and adolescent perspectives on accountability for harm and restorative justice. He is also leading an interdisciplinary collaboration of colleagues across various institutions to study how experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic are intersecting with the transition to college for cohorts of young people, and recently completed a study on how middle or high school students processing the current moment of COVID-19 and integrating it into their developing senses of self.
His work can be found at , and he can also be followed on Twitter at or contacted via email.
Degrees Held
Ph.D., University of Chicago, Comparative Human Development
M.A., University of Chicago
A.B., Harvard University
Research Interests
- Adolescent Development
- Peace Psychology
- Civic Engagement
- Citizenship & Peace Education
- Restorative Justice
- Transitional Justice
- Human Rights
- Social & Political Psychology