Faculty
 | Shannon E. Cavanagh |
Office: MAI 2314
Phone: 512-471-8319
scavanagh@austin.utexas.edu
Biosketch (PDF format)
Education: Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
B.A., University of Maryland at College Park
Field(s) of Study: Children, Youth and Families, Education and the Transition to Adulthood
Research interests:
Shannon Cavanagh received her PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. After that, she completed a three year NICHD-funded Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin. She began her faculty position in the Department of Sociology at Texas in 2006.
Cavanagh’s research program consists of two general themes. The first focuses on the implications of family instability for children across the early life course. Her work documents children’s movement into and out of different family structure statuses and examines whether this instability, the characteristics of parents’ that select children into these unstable families, or a combination of both is most important to the health and well-being of children and adolescents. The second area focuses on the role of pubertal timing in the lives of young women. Puberty is one of the few universals in early development, producing change throughout the body. Given the social value attached to the female body, the significance of this event often extends beyond the physiological and biological to include many other, non-physical changes in life. What interests Cavanagh most here are the ways that notions of gender, the body, and social context come together to shape how girls negotiate adolescence and the transition into adulthood.