The HDFS Report 2014: Claire Kamp Dush’s Ranking of HDFS Programs in North America

The 2017 ranking can be found here.

This is, to my knowledge, the first publicly available ranking of Human Development and Family Science-type programs. You might wonder – what is Human Development and Family Science, what those of us in the field affectionately call HDFS? My colleague Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan wrote that “The purpose of HDFS is to nurture independent scholars who approach the study of development and behavior of human beings within social contexts from multiple disciplinary perspectives. The training of HDFS graduate students thus encompasses many approaches and paradigms, but is integrated through instruction in systems and bioecological perspectives, which emphasize that individuals are embedded in social contexts and cannot be fully understood out of context, and that human development and adaptation influence and are influenced by multiple interconnected sets of factors (e.g., genes, family relationships, school, community, society).” Below, you will see a ranking of 52-HDFS doctoral programs. These programs have a variety of names, but what they all hold in common is the study of human development in context. I will rank programs again in 2017, and until then, browse these programs, and consider continuing your graduate training in one of these programs that will give you a broad perspective on human development and family relationships across multiple contexts and from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Often the most innovative advances in the study of human development and the family come from scholars who generate ideas after being exposed to a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Study HDFS, and you may be surprised at what you learn, and the knowledge that you generate!

The methodology of these rankings can be accessed here.

I also want to note that the University of Maryland PhD Program in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology was mistakenly left off of the ranking survey so the program was not ranked. It is a great department with excellent faculty. So, prospective students – don’t forget to check them out! You can find out more about their program here.

There are new PhD programs at the University of Florida’s Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences in Youth Development and Family Science and at Montclair State University in Family Studies. Check them out!

2014 Overall Rankings

*The PhD program at Mississippi State University only began in 2013, one year before this ranking.

Top 5 Programs in Family Science 2014

Top 5 Programs in Child Development 2014

Top 5 Programs in Adolescent Development and Emerging Adulthood 2014

Top 5 Programs in Adult Development and Aging 2014