Curriculum Vitae
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999
Dr. Swisher’s research employs a life course perspective to understanding risk factors in the lives of low income families and youth. A central theme emerging from this research is the role of violence in the lives of poor families. He has examined the detrimental effects of exposure to neighborhood violence on adolescent well-being (depression, survival expectations), how adolescents adapt to community violence with violence of their own, and the prevalence of domestic violence and other risk factors among unmarried parents. In more recent work (with Maureen Waller), he has studied the effects of father’s incarceration on relationship stability with mothers and involvement with non-residential children, as well as variations in these relationships across White, African-American, and Latino families. Most recently, he has begun a project (with Danielle Payne and Jorge Chavez) examining trajectories of violence in the transition to adulthood, and how these trajectories are related to changing neighborhood conditions and other life course transitions. This project utilizes newly available data that he produced as part of the Wave III Contextual Database of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Recent Publications:
Swisher, R. R., & Dennison, C. R. (Forthcoming). First and continuing generation students, substance use, and college graduation. Social Forces. doi: 10.1093/sf/soz066
Dennison, C. R., & Swisher, R. R. (2019). Postsecondary education, neighborhood disadvantage, and crime: An examination of life course relative deprivation. Crime and Delinquency, 65(2), 215-238. doi: 10.1177/0011128717753115
Rocheleau, G., & Swisher, R. R. (2017). Adolescent work and substance use: Theoretical mechanisms and variations by socioeconomic status and neighborhood disadvantage. Deviant Behavior, 38(11), 1252-1266. doi: 10.1080/01639625.2016.1248712
Ziegler, J. A., Kuhl, D. C., Swisher, R. R., & Chavez, J. M. (2017). parenthood residency status and criminal desistance across neighborhood contexts. Deviant behavior, 38(1), 17-33.
Swisher, R. R. & Dennison, C. R. (2016). Educational pathways and change in crime between adolescence and early adulthood. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53(6), 840-871.
Kuhl, D. C., Swisher, R. R., Chavez. J. M., & Wilczak, A. (2016). Social class, family formation, and delinquency in early adulthood. Sociological Perspectives, 59(2), 355-367.
Warner, T. D., & Swisher, R. R. (2015). Adolescent survival expectations: Variations by race, ethnicity, and nativity. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 56(4), 478-494.
(Covered in November 18 Huffington Post article, “Half of Young Black Americans Don’t Expect to Live Through Their 30s.”)
Swisher, R. R., & Shaw, U. (2015). Father’s incarceration and adolescent well-being: Life course contingencies and other moderators. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 104(4), 929-960.
Warner, T. D., & Swisher, R. R. (2014). The effect of direct and indirect exposure to violence on youth survival expectations. Journal of Adolescent Health, 55, (6), 817-822.
