Kathleen "Keen" Stassen Berger

Kathleen Stassen Berger, a leading expert on human development, has written a new book that advocates for grandmothers’ role in raising each new generation. Combining her own experiences as a grandmother of three and a deep knowledge of academic research, Berger surveys our changing families and the marginalization of seniors, especially older women, and claims a space for grandmothers in the lives of their grandchildren.

Kathleen Stassen Berger is probably best known to college graduates as the author of The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescenceas well as Invitation to the Life Span. Her developmental texts are currently being used at more than 700 colleges and universities worldwide and are available in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as English. Her research interests include adolescent identity, immigration and bullying. She has published many articles on developmental topics in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Psychologyand in publications of the American Association for Higher Education and the National Education Association for Higher education.

Grandmothering: Building Strong Ties with Every Generation is her first book for a general audience. She is a mother of four and grandmother of three young children.

Berger received her undergraduate education at Stanford University and Radcliffe College, earned an M.A.T. from Harvard University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Yeshiva University. Her broad experience as an educator includes directing a preschool, serving as chair of philosophy at the United Nations International School, teaching child and adolescent development to graduate students at Fordham University and undergraduates at Montclair State University in New Jersey and at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, as well as teaching social psychology to inmates at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility. 

Throughout most of her professional career, Berger has worked at City University of New York’s Bronx Community College, first as an adjunct and for the past two decades as a full professor. She has taught introduction to psychology, child and adolescent development, adulthood and aging, social psychology, abnormal psychology, and human motivation. Her students, who come from many ethnic, economic, and educational backgrounds and have a wide range of ages and interests, consistently honor her with the highest teaching evaluations.