KHAS Psychology Department Colloquium Series – Gamze Turunç, PhD

KHAS Psychology Department Colloquium Series host Dr. Gamze Turunç (Koç University Independent Evaluation Lab) on Friday, October 28 between 10:30-12:00 at B-409 for her speech titled “Parenting in Low-Resource Contexts.”

Abstract: According to the latest numbers, more than half of the world’s population of children are currently living in disadvantaged settings such as low-and-middle income countries (LMICs), or they are facing forced displacement or experiencing armed conflict. Negative experiences and lack of resources in these contexts put millions of children and their parents in a vulnerable position in terms of mental health and functioning. My research focuses on the risk factors for these vulnerable groups and how and to what extent these risks interfere with parenting and child outcomes mostly using nationally representative datasets.

In this talk, I will briefly mention about attitudes towards violence against women as a risk factor for involved parenting in 19 lowand-middle income countries. In another study, using data from Iraq, I will present the associations between regional conflict intensity, parental discipline and child functioning. Finally, I will present a recent study with Syrian refugee fathers, testing a multiple linkage model between war trauma, different post-displacement difficulties, paternal mental health and parenting behaviors. I will also discuss the implications of the results in terms of prevention, intervention and policy strategies and gaps in the literature to be investigated by future research.