News & Events

Here you will find upcoming and recent events, public information, as well as book and press releases from the Zigler Center.

Events

SPECIAL EVENT

Thursday, Oct 16, 7-9 p.m. Room 101, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St.

“INSIDE OUT: PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN” directed and produced by Joanna Lipper 

Documentary Film Screening to be followed by a Panel Discussion:
 
“Imagination, Creativity and Self-Perception in Children Between the ages of Five and Twelve”

Panel will be moderated by Dr. Marc Brackett (Associate Research Scientist, Department of Psychology, Yale University) and will include author and filmmaker, Joanna Lipper, Dr. Jerome Singer (Professor of Psychology and Child Study Center, Emeritus, Yale University, Dr. Dorothy Singer (Senior Research Scientist, Department of Psychology and Senior Research Associate, Child Study Center, Yale University), Dr. Robin Stern (Psychoanalyst, Private Practice, New York, NY) and Daphne Merkin (Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine).

A map of the Yale campus is available online. Parking is available at meters on the street.

The children in Joanna Lipper’s intimate award-winning documentary tell their own life stories with humor, sadness, honesty, creativity and vivid imagination.  The world is portrayed as experienced by each child narrator, including elements of fantasy.  Their stories encompass many emotions.  They include dramas of abandonment, divorce, immigration, adoption, birth, death, separation, religion and anxiety, as well as dreams, imaginary friends, and detailed reports back from the word of make-believe.

“For the child, the first step toward independence involves being able to clearly hear his/her own authentic internal voice,” says Lipper.  “As these children approach adolescence, the relationship between knowledge, self-awareness and loss of innocence becomes a central theme.”  

By taking an approach that interweaves fact and fiction, Lipper gives audiences the opportunity to peek into internal landscapes of these young psyches.  With great sensitivity and precision, she takes the usually inaudible chant of the child’s unconscious mind—and makes it audible.  Funny, sad, playful and riveting, these portraits reveal identities in the process of development.

In a lecture preceding the film, Lipper will discuss the ways in which the self and others are represented in imaginative play, fantasies and creative pursuits during childhood.  She will also discuss her methods of working with children, her observation of their make-believe and pretend games, and the transformation of ordinary moments and the home environment through the power of the child’s imagination.   

Inside Out: Portraits of Children is being released nationwide on DVD in September 2008 by Cinema Libre Studio. It will appear as a special bonus feature on a DVD also featuring Joanna Lipper’s Little Fugitive.

Joanna Lipper is an author and filmmaker.  She runs Sea Wall Entertainment, a company dedicated to the research, development and production of books and films. Ms. Lipper holds an M.Sc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology and is currently a fellow at the W.E.B Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.   Her work includes Growing Up Fast (Picador 2003), a nationally acclaimed book about teen parents, two documentaries, Growing Up Fast and Inside Out: Portraits of Children, and the feature film Little Fugitive, currently available on DVD from Cinema Libre Studio.  For more information and to view trailers and clips from these films please visit: www.joannalipper.com/films_insideout_press.html

Weekly Social Policy Lecture Series

The Zigler Center’s weekly Social Policy Lecture Series meets Fridays from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. during the academic year. For more information, see our Lecture Series page.

The School of the 21st Century National Conference

The School of the 21 st Century 2008 National Conference was held July 14-16 at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale. For more information, see the 21C Website.

Zigler Center Renaming Ceremony

On July 25, 2005, a celebration to mark the renaming of the Yale Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy to The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy was held. Guest speakers included U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd; U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro; U.S. Rep. John Larson; New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr.; former U.S. Surgeon General Julius B. Richmond; Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg; and Tim Shriver, chairman of the International Special Olympics. Read the press release, or media coverage of the event from the New Haven Register and Medicine@Yale.

Public Information

Recent Interviews:

Yale Prof and the Finer Points of a Child's Time Out, Alan Kazdin, August 3, 2008

Finding Blooms Amid the Ashes, Linda Mayes, Medicine@Yale, July/August 2008

Physician at Work John Leventhal, Yale Practice, February 2008

Giving Intervention a Head Start A Conversation with Edward Zigler Educational Leadership, October 2007

Opinion Essays:

The Sweet and Lowdown on Sugar written by Kelly Brownell and Marion Nestle for The New York Times

Popular Media Articles:

TV's 'Barney' Is Far From Extinct, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2008 with quote from Dorothy Singer, Zigler Center faculty.

'Father' of Head Start Says It's Not Lived Up to Potenial, The Advocate (LA), March 26, 2008, with quotes from Edward Zigler, Zigler Center Director, Emeritus.

Restaurants as Obesity Cops Doesn't Sit Well, USA Today, February 5, 2008, with quote from Kelly Brownell, Zigler Center faculty

Back to Make-Believe, Florida Today, November 17, 2007, with quote from Dorothy Singer, Zigler Center faculty

Anger Management, Yale Alumni Magazine, September/October 2007, with quote from Victoria Brescoll, Zigler Center post-doctoral fellow

Out of Control-Families Turn to Pediatricians for help when child care centers threaten explusion, American Academy of Pediatrics News, July 2007, with quote from Walter Gilliam.

Breaking the Tantrum Cycle on work by Alan Kazdin, Zigler Center faculty, for Yale Alumni Magazine

Testimony:

Connecticut Legislature Testimony by Joseph Mahoney

Book Releases

In August 2006, two books by Zigler Center authors were released: A Vision for Universal Preschool Education and Child Development and Social Policy Knowledge for Action. For information see our Publications page.

Press Releases

A new study by Zigler Center faculty of Parents as Teachers shows the program's positive impact. Click here for a press release.

A Vision for Universal Preschool Education, by Edward Zigler, Walter Gilliam and Stephanie Jones, has won the 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education. Read a press release here.

A study by Walter Gilliam, Zigler Center Director, found that Pre-K students are expelled at a rate more than three times that of children in grades K-12. Read a press release on this study. A follow-up report that advocates policies to reduce expulsion of the nation’s youngest students was released on January 10, 2008. Read a press release here.