Peggy J. Miller
Contact Information
Office: 339 Communication
Telephone: (217) 333-4867
Email: pjm@illinois.edu
Professor; Joint appointment in Psychology
Bio
Professor Miller is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research explores how children become cultural beings through their participation in everyday talk. One strand of her current work focuses on personal storytelling as the prism through which socialization transpires, selves are constructed and transformed, and social inequalities are reproduced. Committed to comparative research, she studies personal storytelling across cultures (Taiwan and the U. S.) and social classes. In a related strand of research, she is exploring self-esteem as a cultural ideal, childrearing goal, and discursive practice that circulates widely in contemporary American society. In 2006-2007 Miller was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. She is a co-editor of The child: An encyclopedic companion (Chicago, 2009). Miller teaches courses in ethnographic methods, narrative, contextual theories of communication, and language, culture, and ideology. In 2001 she received the Graduate College Outstanding Mentor Award. In addition to her joint appointment in the Department of Psychology, Miller is affiliated with the Center for Writing Studies, the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, and the Department of Educational Psychology.
Curriculum Vitae
Experience
- Variation in communication within and across cultures; childhood socialization through everyday discourse, narrative, cultural psychology, ethnographic methods.
Education
- Ph.D., Columbia University
Selected Publications
Shweder, R.A., Bidell, T., Dailey, A., Dixon, S., Miller, P.J., & Modell, J. (Eds.) (2009). The child: An encyclopedic companion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Miller, P.J., Koven, M., & Lin, S. (in press). Narrative. In S. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Handbook of language socialization. New York: Blackwell.
Miller, P.J., Fung, H., & Koven, M. (2007). Narrative reverberations: How participation in narrative practices co-creates persons and cultures. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.) The handbook of cultural psychology. New York: Guildford University Press.
Shweder, R. A., Goodnow, J.J., Hitano, G., LeVine, R., Markus, H., & Miller, P.J. (2006). The cultural psychology of development: One mind, many mentalities. In W. Damon (Ed.), The handbook of child
psychology. Vol. 1 (6th ed.) New York: John Wiley.
Sandel, T., Cho, G.E., Miller, P.J., & Wang, S-H. (2006). A cross-cultural study of grandmothers and their role in Taiwanese and Euro-American families. Journal of Family Communication, 6, 255-278.
Miller, P.J., Cho, G.E., & Bracey, J. (2005). Expanding the angle of vision on working-class children’s storytelling. Human Development, 48, 151-154.