Faculty Directory

Scott Seider

Buehler Faculty Fellow, Professor

Department

CDEP Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology

Profile

Scott Seider is an applied developmental psychologist whose research focuses on how parents and educators can help young people to thrive as individuals and contribute to building a better world. In one stream of research, Dr. Seider investigates how parents in mixed race and mixed faith families share their cultural and religious traditions with their children. In a second stream of research Dr. Seider explores how educators nurture their students' development of the civic skills, character strengths, and critical consciousness necessary to analyze and challenge injustice. He is the co-author of numerous articles and books including Educating for Justice (2025), Character Compass 2nd edition (2025), and Schooling for Critical Consciousness (2020). At Boston College, Dr. Seider teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focused on adolescent development, transformative teaching and learning, qualitative research methods, and social oppression and transformation. He previously worked as an English teacher in the Boston Public Schools and as a teacher educator at Boston University. Dr. Seider also serves on advisory boards for a number of youth-serving organizations including the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, EL Education, and the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Select Publications

Select Books

  • Seider, S., El-Amin, A., & Bott, J. (2025). Educating for justice: Schoolwide strategies to prepare students to recognize, analyze, and challenge inequity. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. 
  • Seider, S., Clark, S., & Soutter, M. (2026). Character compass 2nd Edition: Four directions for building powerful school culture and student success. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Select Academic Articles

  • Alford, B., Edwards, E., Daza, K., Diaz, B., Fogelman, S., Le, T., Huang, M., Dobbs, C., Graves, D., & Seider, S. (2026). Investigating advisory as a space for nurturing early adolescents’ civic development and critical consciousness. Research in Middle Level Education, 49(2), 1-24.
  • Daza, K. & Seider, S. (2025). How multiethnic-racial emerging adults describe and understand their parents’ ethnic-racial socialization practices. Emerging Adulthood, 13(4), 962-981.
  • Seider, S., Magri, E., & Snyder, J. (2025). Investigating the associations between parent faith socialization practices and young adult’s character formation. Journal of Character Education, 21 (1-2), 89-110.

Select Practitioner Articles

  • El-Amin, A., & Seider, S. (2026 February 18). Five ways to teach critical thinking in challenging times. Greater Good.
  • Seider, S., Carpenter, A., Kang, C., Titchner, D., Xu, H., & Zheng, Y. (2021 November 23). What multicultural families can teach kids about character. Greater Good Magazine.
  • Seider, S., & Graves, D. (2020 January). Making SEL culturally competent: Teaching students about oppression and critical consciousness is a vital component of social-emotional learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/making-sel-culturally-competent.

Select Grants

  • Principal Investigator, “Building communities of practice to foster civic character in crew.” John Templeton Foundation. ($553,102) (2022-2025)
  • Principal Investigator, “The development of critical consciousness in adolescents attending no excuses and progressive urban charter high schools.” Spencer Foundation (with Daren Graves, Co-PI) (2016-2020) ($350,000). 
  • Principal Investigator, “Critical consciousness combines civic, intellectual, and performance character virtues to foster positive youth development.” John Templeton Foundation (with Daren Graves, co-PI) (2015-2017) ($421,590). 
  • Principal Investigator, “Developing curiosity in adolescents through the Question Formulation Technique.” John Templeton Foundation (with Shelby Clark, Co-PI) (2015-2017) ($153,132). 
  • Principal Investigator, “The impact of urban charter schools on the critical consciousness of marginalized youth.” National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship (2013-2015) ($55,000). 

Select Appointments & Awards

  • NAEd Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation (2013) 
  • Moral Development & Education Outstanding Book Award, American Educational Research Association (2013). 
  • Community Builder Award, Phillips Brooks House Association Summer Urban Program (2013) 
  • Moral Development & Education Outstanding Book Award, American Educational Research Association (2012)
  •  Kuhmerker Dissertation Award, Association for Moral Education (2010)
  • Marquand Award for Exceptional Advising and Counseling, Harvard University (2007)

Professional Activities

Editorial Board, Journal of Adolescent Research; Editorial Board, Journal of Character Education; Research Advisory Board, EL Education, Education Advisory Council, Character.org; Advisory Board, Center for Parent & Teen Communication

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