Kevin Ferreira van Leer

Assistant Professor

Human Development and Family Sciences

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Dr. Ferreira van Leer is accepting graduate student applicants for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Kevin Ferreira van Leer is a community and developmental psychologist who joined the HDFS faculty as an assistant professor in August 2023. His research examines the social and cultural contexts that promote positive development and liberation for Latine immigrants and their families, with an emphasis on educational contexts. He largely utilizes community-engaged research, collaborating directly with immigrant communities to develop research projects around their concerns and build their capacity to conduct research themselves. This work is shared with scholarly communities in academic journals and conferences, with immigrant communities themselves through photos, infographics and popular education materials, and with policy makers through briefs. 

Learn more about Dr. Ferreira van Leer’s research: 

• Website
• HDFS Faculty Spotlight, March 2024
• Curriculum Vitae

Current Projects:

• Using Our Voices to Transform Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs)
• Addressing Inequities for Immigrant Families: Promoting Child and Parent Well-being through Social Policies and Services

Research Interests:

• Assessing the role of socialization agents & contexts in influencing the educational & caregiving experiences of Latine immigrant families
• Gaining an understanding of the impact of international & national policies on migrant families
• Exploring critical consciousness and the role of individual and collective resistance to oppression

Educational Background:

• Ph.D. in Applied Developmental & Educational Psychology, Lynch School of Education & Human Development, Boston College, 2018
• B.A. in Interdisciplinary Major with a concentration in Global Conflict Studies, Wagner College, 2013
• Bilingual (English & Spanish) International Baccalaureate Degree, United World College Costa Rica, 2009

Selected Publications:

• Ferreira van Leer, K., & Coley, R. L. (2023). Early childhood education decision-making among Latinx foreign-born in the United States: A culturally informed model of decision-making. Children and Youth Services Review, 151(August 2023), 107046. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107046
• Cook, K.D., Ferreira van Leer, K., & Lombardi, C. M. (2023). Exploring predictors and outcomes of racial/ethnic match between children and providers in Early Head Start. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 62(1), 275-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2022.09.002
• Suzuki, S., Johnson, S. K., & Ferreira van Leer, K. (2023). Situating critical consciousness within the developmental system: Insights from the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory. In L.J. Rapa & E. B. Godfrey (Eds.), Critical Consciousness: Expanding Theory and Measurement (pp. 41-62). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009153751
• Cook, K.D., Ferreira van Leer, K., Gandhi, J., Ayala, C. & Kuh, L.P. (2022). Managing disruptions in early education and care: Lessons from COVID-19. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-022-01430-2
• Ferreira van Leer, K.. McGillen, G., Ashby, K., Bhattacharyya, S., Simmons, C. (2021). When students listen: A co-constructed autoethnography graduate student activists eradicating racism in higher education. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 12(3), 1-23. https://www.gjcpp.org/en/article.php?issue=40&article=246
• Buckingham, S., Langhout, R. D., Rusch, D., Mehta, T., Chavez, N., Ferreira van Leer, K., Oberoi, A., Indart, M., Paloma, V., King, E., Olson, B. (2021). The roles of settings in supporting immigrants’ resistance to injustice and oppression: A policy position statement by the Society for Community Research and Action. Society for Community Research and Action, Division 27 of the American Psychological Association. American Journal of Community Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12515
• Ferreira van Leer, K., Crosby, D., & Mendez, J. (2021). Disruptions to child care and work arrangements for low-income Hispanic families are common, varied and costly [Research Brief]. Bethesda, MD: National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families.
• Chicco, J., Esparza, P., Lykes, M.B., Balcazar, F.E., & Ferreira, K. (2016). Statement on the incarceration of undocumented immigrant families: A policy statement by the Society for Community Research and Action: Division 27 of the American Psychological Association. American Journal of Community Psychology 57, 255-263.

Selected Presentations:

• Gonzalez, A., Ferreira van Leer, K., & Razo-Soto, M. (November, 2022). Do they see us? Using our voice to transform HIS “Servingness.” [Paper presentation]. Association for the Study of Higher Education’s 2022 Council for Ethnic Participant Pre-Conference, November 16, Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Ferreira van Leer, K., Moylan, A., Kivel, D. (2022, October). Continuing our praxis: Lessons learned over 2 years of a faculty learning community and institutional work on centering anti-racism in experiential learning. [Poster]. Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, October 23-26, 2022, San Diego, California.
• Ferreira van Leer, K., Mendez, J., Porras Velazquez, M., Torres, Y. (2022, June). CCDF subsidy access for low-income Latinx families in North Carolina: Insight from community resource brokers [Poster]. National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC), June 27-29, 2022, Virtual.
• Ferreira van Leer, K., Smith, J., Crosby, D. (2021, April). Disruptions to child care and work arrangements for low-income households: An examination of racial/ethnic differences in disruptions [Paper presentation]. In. D. Crosby (Chair), Families’ work-childcare coordination in the context of low-wage work, precarious schedules and the COVID-19 pandemic. Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2021 Biennial Meeting, Virtual.

Teaching:

• HDFS 2001. Diversity Issues in Human Development and Family Sciences (undergraduate)
• HDFS 5312.  An Intersectional Approach to Individual and Family Diversity in the U.S. (graduate)