Sharon Wolf

Sharon Wolf is an expert in child development and how early family and school environments affect learning outcomes. She studies the links between poverty, social policies, education, and child development through experimental and quasi-experimental methods. This work includes assessing the role high-quality education plays in bolstering development for children who face adversity.

Professional Biography

Dr. Sharon Wolf is an applied developmental psychologist who studies how children's family and educational environments shape their development, focusing on disadvantaged populations in the United States and in low-income countries. Dr. Wolf's research informs interventions and tests the effectiveness of theoretically informed policy solutions designed to promote childhood development and learning through randomized field experiments.

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn GSE, Dr. Wolf was a postdoctoral research scientist at the Global TIES for Children research center at New York University and a National Poverty Fellow with the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was in residence at the US Department of Health and Human Services. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Analysis from New York University.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Wolf’s work focuses on three primary areas: developing and evaluating interventions to improve educational quality and child learning outcomes; the measurement of educational settings and children’s learning outcomes; and understanding the links between poverty, education, and child development.

Dr. Wolf has worked with Ministry of Education in Ghana to improve the quality of their universal kindergarten education system by helping teachers implement child-centered, play-based learning teaching practices. In partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action and academic collaborators at Penn and NYU, she developed and evaluated a scalable model for in-service teacher training and a parental awareness program delivered through school parent-teacher associations, and evaluated a pre-service training model for kindergarten student teachers.

In addition, Dr. Wolf studies the links between poverty, anti-poverty policies, and child development in both the United States and in low-income countries. She studies the interplay between household economic hardship and school quality in shaping children’s development. In Cote d’Ivoire, Dr. Wolf and her collaborators are beginning a new community-randomized trial to evaluate the impacts of a two-pronged approach to addressing child labor and learning outcomes: poverty reduction through unconditional cash transfers and educational quality improvement through Teaching at the Right Level.

Publications

Featured

Learning at the bottom of the pyramid: Science, measurement, and policy in low-income countries

Selected Publications

Wolf, S., Aurino, E., Suntheimer, N., Avornyo, E., Tsinigo, E., Jordan, J., Samanhyia, S., Aber, J. L., & Behrman, J. R. (2022). Remote learning engagement and learning outcomes during school closures in Ghana. International Journal of Educational Research, 115, 102055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.102055

Wolf, S., Aurino, E., Suntheimer, N. M., Avornyo, E., Tsinigo, E., Behrman, J. R., & Aber, J. L. (in press). Medium-term protective effects of quality early childhood education during the Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13824

Suntheimer, N. M., Sulik, M., Obradovic, J., & Wolf, S. (2022). Executive function mediates the association between cumulative risk and learning in Ghanaian schoolchildren. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001372

McCoy, D. C., Wolf, S., & Tsinigo, E. (2022). Improving early childhood development on a global scale: Best practices for intervention. JAMA Pediatrics, 176(4), 337–338. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.5351

Chen, S., & Wolf, S. (2021). Measuring the quality of early childhood education in low- and middle-income countries. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.774740

Wolf, S., Reyes, R., Weiss, E. M., & McDermott, P. (2021). Trajectories of social-emotional development across pre-primary and early primary school. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 75, 101297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101297

Aurino, E., Wolf, S., & Tsinigo, E. (2020). Household food insecurity and early childhood development: Longitudinal evidence from Ghana. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230965. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230965

Wolf, S., & Suntheimer, N. M. (2019). A dimensional risk approach to assessing early adversity in a national sample. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 62, 270–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2019.03.004

Wolf, S., Aber, J. L., Behrman, J. R., & Tsinigo, E. (2019). Experimental impacts of the Quality Preschool for Ghana interventions on teacher professional well-being, classroom quality, and children’s school readiness. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 12(1), 10–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2018.1517199

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Sharon Wolf co-edits “Nature” npj collection on using social and behavioral science to address global achievement inequality

The collection underscores how inequality manifests across multiple levels, explores its effects on children, and highlights interventions to create supportive educational environments.

July 12, 2024

Penn GSE faculty projects awarded grants by Penn Global

Sharon Wolf and Amrit Thapa are honored with grants for their innovative research projects.

April 26, 2024

Supporting education in Ghana

Sharon Wolf is leading a project to reach parents in impoverished rural areas with text messages.

May 2, 2022

Wolf’s years-long work in Ghana's schools expands to address pandemic-related inequalities

In a new study, Penn GSE’s Sharon Wolf documents in detail how inequalities impacted learning in Ghana during the pandemic and shares how that could inform any nation’s approach to instruction this fall.

October 28, 2021

Wolf’s research on childhood hunger offers a warning as pandemic threatens food security

‘This pandemic is going to have consequences for children,’ Wolf says.

April 16, 2020

Four Penn GSE students receive prestigious National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowships

Sharon Wolf received an NAED/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship to further her research of early childhood education in sub-Saharan Africa.

June 20, 2019

NPR showcases Sharon Wolf's work to transform Ghana’s preschools

In Ghana’s capital city of Accra, roughly 80 percent of children are enrolled in preschool by age three – but tests show that traditional call-and-response teaching, rote memorization, and corporal punishment do not lead to much learning.

May 30, 2018

Sharon Wolf receives 3-year Jacobs Fellowship to extend early childhood research in rural Ghana and Ivory Coast

Wolf is one of 11 Jacobs Fellows chosen from a pool of over 400 applicants.

March 14, 2018

Wolf: Children from poor neighborhoods are less likely to be ready for school

In Education Week, Wolf discussed her latest research on the effects living in high-poverty neighborhoods has on childhood development.

August 17, 2017

Sharon Wolf brings expertise in early childhood to Penn GSE, Ghana

Wolf’s research is helping education leaders in Ghana reimagine the school experience.

September 19, 2016

In the Media

Children are going hungry, and their futures are on the line. Evidence from Ghana

Sharon Wolf and an Imperial College London colleague co-authored an article about the effects of food shortages on early childhood development. “We found that children from households that were food insecure even only once during the three-year study period had lower literacy and numeracy abilities and short-term memory performance later on,” they wrote.

The Conversation | November 11, 2020

Effects of harsh and violent discipline on child behavioural outcomes

Sharon Wolf’s research examined three forms of discipline among caregivers of preschoolers in Ghana and described the harmful effects of harsh and violent discipline.

Ghana News Agency | October 8, 2019

What We Can Learn From Ghana's Obsession With Preschool

Sharon Wolf speaks about her work with the Ghanaian government to revamp preschools in the capital city of Accra.

NPR | June 19, 2018

Preschools In Ghana's Capital Challenge Call-And-Response System

Sharon Wolf describes her work to transform preschool education in Ghana by training teachers in play-based and child-centered instruction, and she discusses the challenges of overcoming Ghanaian parents’ resistance to this new approach to learning.

NPR | May 30, 2018

Innovative training programme for KG teachers improves child learning

Sharon Wolf discusses the training program’s impact on improving teacher-child interactions and reducing teacher burnout.

Ghana Nation | October 14, 2017

Study Looks at Link Between Readiness, Post-Recession Rise in Poverty

Sharon Wolf discusses the study’s findings on school readiness and the need for policymakers to consider the dimension of neighborhood disadvantage.

Education Week | July 24, 2017

Awards & Honors

Sharon Wolf has been awarded $100,000 by the Jacobs Foundation to expand the scope of a randomized control trial already funded by the World Bank Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) by adding two rounds of assessments of children’s learning outcomes, which would be key to fully understanding program impacts on children of remote learning due to COVID-19. The trial focuses on increasing parental engagement in child remote learning, during and in the aftermath of the pandemic, with a particular focus on promoting gender parity in education.

Posted on November 15, 2020

Sharon Wolf has been awarded a grant from the 2020-2021 World Bank Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF). Her project is entitled “Nudges to improve learning and gender parity: Supporting parent engagement and Ghana’s educational response to Covid-19 using mobile phones,” and the funding totals $299,626. Dr. Wolf will be the PI, alongside co-PIs Elisabetta Aurino of Imperial College London and Guilherme Lichand at the University of Zurich.

Posted on June 1, 2020

Sharon Wolf has received an award from the Penn Global Engagement fund for her project "Assessing executive functioning in Ghanaian school children." The study will look at how executive function competencies (like working memory, goal setting, and organization) develop and are linked to school success in Ghana.

Posted on August 7, 2019

Sharon Wolf has received the inaugural Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award from the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. The award recognizes an early career scholar whose work has advanced rigorous research relevant to educational practice.

Posted on March 13, 2019

Sharon Wolf was recently selected as one of the 11 global fellows of the 2018•2020 Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program aimed at improving the learning, development, and living conditions of children and youth. Dr. Wolf will spend her fellowship period advancing scientific knowledge and forming new insights about early childhood development, early childhood education, and family well-being in West Africa.

Posted on February 7, 2018

Sharon Wolf recently received the “Early Career Research Fellowship” of $167,907 from Jacobs Foundation. During this fellowship, Wolf will work on developing, evaluating, and scaling up early childhood development policies in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. By contributing to the growing body of evidence from which governments and other institutions can effectively intervene to support children to be resilient despite the many challenges they face, Wolf aims to uniquely advance research and practice in early childhood development and education, as well as in applied developmental science.

Posted on January 19, 2018

Sharon Wolf was awarded approximately $420,000 by the British Academy for a longitudinal follow-up of children from project “Assessing Sustained Impacts of the Quality Preschool for Ghana Teacher Training Intervention on Children’s Early Primary Grade Outcomes.” This project will follow the children from the original study for an additional year as they transition into primary school to assess sustained impacts of the intervention.

Posted on September 19, 2017

Sharon Wolf received a $56,000 grant as a researcher in the project “Developing, testing, and scaling-up supply- and demand-side interventions to improve kindergarten educational quality in Ghana.” Funded by the World Bank Strategic Evaluation Fund (SIEF), this award is part of a larger project/partnership among the University of Pennsylvania, Innovations for Poverty Action, New York University, and two partner organizations in Ghana.

Posted on July 26, 2017

Sharon Wolf has been named an AERA-SRCD Early Career Fellow in Early Childhood Education and Development. This joint initiative between the American Educational Research Association and the Society for Research in Child Development seeks to build an early career cohort of scholars with integrative interests and expertise at the nexus of child development and formal/informal education and learning in their broader social context.

Posted on July 11, 2017

Sharon Wolf has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison as Principal Investigator of a study, “Effects of State Safety Net and Labor Policies on Family Economic Stability in the Aftermath of the Great Recession” with co-PI Dr. Taryn Morrissey of American University. The study will assess how state social and labor policies impacted families' economic stability and well-being in the aftermath of the recession.

Posted on July 11, 2017

Journal Editorial Boards

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Editorial Board