Robert Marx

Robert A. Marx, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Development at San José State University. He earned his PhD in Community Research and Action from the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He is an interdisciplinary scholar, and his community-engaged research and practice focus on reframing dominant visions of queer young people, so that they are no longer viewed as deviant, damaged, or at-risk, but rather as the gifted, complex people they are. He deploys a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including critical youth participatory action research and meta-analysis, to better understand and promote marginalized youth’s development. As a former high school English teacher, he approaches this work from the intersection of educational studies, developmental psychology, and critical pedagogy, and his work encourages young people to see themselves as producers of knowledge and as change agents.